A Close Shave

Oil on panel, signed and dated: “1869”.

Provenance: from the Estate of Presly D. Bowen, Gibson Island, MD

Painting size: 10” x 14”
Frame size: 16.5” x 20.75”

. Painter and printmaker Jean-Baptiste Madou studied at the Académie de Bruxelles under P.J.C. François. By 1820 he entered the studio of Jobur and Weissenbruck where he produced book illustrations and portraits. Madou is best known as a lithographer; he was awarded a gold medal by the salon de Bruxelles in 1836 for his La Physionomie de la société en Europe depuis 1400 jusqu’ à nos jours, a collection of caricatures.

As a painter, Madou was greatly influenced by the work of Dutch artists and particularly admired the all-too-human genre scenes of David Teniers. Madou’s interest in caricature and genre come to the fore in A Close Shave where a wealthy gentleman, indicated by the trunk filled with money at the right, suddenly realizes that his barber is not to be trusted. With his razor poised for action, the barber tries to reassure his bug-eyed customer who raises his hands in protest. Just then a third man wearing a top hat and an attractive lady arrive. Neither seems surprised. Indeed, the man in the top hat looks at the barber with a certain conspiratorial air. Are the three in cahoots to “fleece” the gentleman for all he’s worth? Shaving- and the implication of taking advantage-was a visual trope used by printmakers William Hogarth and Francisco de Goya. Madou may have borrowed the theme from these two well-known satirists.

Madou’s work has been collected by museums in Brussels, Antwerp, Liege and Amsterdam. He is listed in Le Dictionnaire des Peíntres Belges du XIVe siècle à nos jours (1995) and Lexicon of the Belgian Romantic Painters (Flippo, 1981).