Charles Henry Tenré

CHARLES HENRY TENRÉ (France, 1854- 1926).
"First balloon flight over Paris".
Oil on paper adhered to cardboard.
Signed in the lower right corner.
Measurements: 65 x 48,5 cm; 86 x 69 cm (frame).
In this scene painted by Charles Henry Tenré, the spectator is placed behind two couples of elegantly dressed bourgeois, placed in the foreground and with their backs turned, contemplating the ascent of a hot air balloon over the sky of Paris. The carefully constructed composition leads the eye from the serene rigidity of the figures in the foreground to the lightness and movement of the balloon. The city spreads out below the balloon, with a barely suggested horizon line. In the distance, the contours of Les Invalides in Paris are delicately insinuated, almost spherical.
Charles Henry Tenré was a French painter renowned for his refined genre scenes and elegant portraits, characteristic of Belle Époque taste.
Son of the banker Ludovic Tenré, he spent his childhood in a bourgeois environment in his hometown, where he had early access to the collections of the museum installed in the local castle. His artistic training took place at the École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts in Paris, where he was a student of Edmond Yon, a landscape painter linked to the Barbizon school, as well as Gustave Boulanger and Jules Lefebvre.
Like many artists of his generation, he held various occupations in the financial field, as a remisier and stockbroker, to ensure his livelihood at a time marked by intense speculation on the Paris Stock Exchange. He began his exhibition career at the Salon des Artistes Français in 1883, participating regularly throughout his life. Several of his works were reproduced in the form of engravings and postcards. He received an honorable mention in 1891, a bronze medal at the Universal Exhibition in Paris in 1900, and a silver medal in 1911. He was made a knight of the Legion of Honor in recognition of his career.
His output includes genre scenes such as La Lettre, La Poste, La Messe de Saint-Hubert and Jeunes femmes vélocipédistes avenue du Bois, as well as society portraits, landscapes and depictions of the Château de Versailles, both its interiors and gardens. He also cultivated interior scenes and portraits of elegant women, all marked by a meticulous attention to detail and a sensibility typical of fin-de-siècle refinement.