Julius LeBlanc Stewart Paintings

Julius LeBlanc Stewart Biography

Julius L. Stewart’s education, career, and reputation were all formed in Europe. Son of the wealthy expatriate art collector William Stewart, this artist had entrée into the salons of rich Americans living abroad and their European friends. In this stratum of social privilege Julius Leblanc Stewart found virtually all his subjects.

His popularity and success continued from 1878, when first exhibited Julius LeBlanc Stewart paintings in the Paris Salon, to the end of the century. The Baptism, last of his elaborate group subjects, received acclaim at the Berlin International Exposition. In the late 1890s Julius Leblanc Stewart painted outdoor scene paintings of Venice, and later, depictions of religious subjects.

By the end of the decade his career began to decline, and Stewart received little further public or critical attention. Initially, the artist painted single figures but soon became known for elaborate narrative Julius LeBlanc Stewart paintings. The painstaking detail of the figures assembled in The Baptism suggests particularity. The men’s faces are strongly individual, although the women’s are less so. The scene was probably inspired by a specific baptism, but the identity of the family is unknown. The Baptism, with its illusionism, elaborate composition, implied narrative, and slow ceremonial pace, is a tour de force of technical skill and a prime example of late nineteenth-century aesthetics. The richly covered damask walls, the silk, satin, and lace trim of the elaborate attire, and the soft, delicately rendered skin of the women and children are as astonishing as their identity is cryptic.

artist Julius LeBlanc Stewart was a figure and genre painter from Philadelphia who spent almost his entire life in Paris. From the 1880s through the first decade of the 20th century, Julius Leblanc Stewart ranked with John Singer Sargent "as one of the most popular expatriate American artists in Paris" (Falk). Julius Leblanc Stewart painted the life he thoroughly enjoyed -Parisian high society.

Julius LeBlanc Stewart paintings are spirited and realistic, full of fashionable women, sumptuous fabrics and elegant drawing rooms. The painter was following a genre begun by his friend, Jean Beraud, but his more vivacious art was considered especially American.