Original ink and wash painting by the French Romanticist, Eugène Froment (1820-1900). The work is an idealized depiction of a classic period shepherd boy at his leisure, playing Pan pipes while resting on a stone pillar. The work may well have been a study for decoration on a Sevres vase.

It is rendered in a sepia wash on grey/green wove paper, is signed by the artist in ink and measures 15 3/4 x 9 3/4 inches.  It has a flattened horizontal crease and some spotting, otherwise excellent condition and would look stunning with a frame and mat.

Eugène Froment (1820-1900) was a French painter, designer and printmaker. Born Jacques Victor Eugène Froment-Delormel, he was a pupil of Jules Jollivet, Pierre Lecomte and Eugène-Ammanuel Amaury-Duval, for whom he also acted as executor.

From 1857 to 1885 he worked mainly as a designer for the Sèvres manufactory. He exhibited regularly at the Paris Salon from 1842 to 1880; from 1864 he could exhibit his works at the Salon without having to undergo selection by the jury.

Heavily influenced by the style of Ingres’s pupils, and especially Amaury-Duval, Froment painted a Virgin (1846; Autun, St Jean) that recalls the contemporary work of Ingres for the stained-glass windows in the chapel of St Ferdinand at Dreux.

Froment’s genre scenes, with their pleasant, decorative symbolism, are often close to the works of Jean-Léon Gérôme.