The Welcome

Paul-Albert Besnard (1849-1934) was a student of the academic painter Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), won the prix de Rome in 1874 and was among the founders of the Société Nationale in 1890. Throughout his career his style remained in between academic and impressionistic. During the last thirty years of his life he held important positions in the Académie de France in Rome, the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Académie française, the Académie de Saint Luc and the Royal Academy.
'L'Accueil' is a preporatory study for a painting by Besnard entitled l'Ile Heureuse which was hung at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900. In the study, a woman reaches out her arms in a welcoming gesture at center; at bottom right, a seated girl claps her hands together,viewed in profile. The plate was made for la Société des Amis du Louvre who offered the prints to members in 1899.