Le Lever

"Le Lever" (The Rising / Getting Up) from 1898, held at the Museum of Fine Arts of Reims, belongs to Fantin-Latour's late imaginary compositions depicting female figures in intimate private acts. The lever — the act of rising from bed — was a subject with eighteenth-century roots, having been painted by Boucher and Fragonard as an occasion for depicting feminine beauty in a relaxed, undressed state. Fantin-Latour's approach removed the Rococo playfulness from the subject, replacing it with a more earnest, Symbolist-inflected atmospheric quality. The Reims museum, whose collections were partially destroyed in the First World War and rebuilt through donations and purchases in subsequent decades, holds this late Fantin-Latour as part of its French nineteenth-century holdings. The 1898 date places the work in his final decade; these late imaginary subjects became increasingly atmospheric and reduced, the figures emerging from warmer, more unified backgrounds than in his earlier allegorical work.

Oil on canvas with Fantin-Latour's late soft technique: blended transitions, warm atmospheric ground, and figures built through gentle tonal graduation. The subject requires careful handling of the unclothed or semi-draped figure in early morning light — typically a soft, cool illumination contrasting with the warmth of bedding or drapery.