José Frappa

José Frappa (1854–1904), born in Saint-Étienne, trained at the École des beaux-arts in Lyon and subsequently with Pils and Comte in Paris. He exhibited at the Salon from 1876. A painter and sculptor, he explored humorous genre scenes and facial expression. His studies connect academic exercises and theatrical masks.

Hatred, a late nineteenth-century oil painting on canvas at the Musée Joseph-Denais, belongs to this investigation of expression. Phryne, acquired at the Salon of 1903 and deposited at the National Assembly in 1920, takes an ancient subject. A charcoal drawing bearing the same title, held by the Louvre’s Department of Prints and Drawings under the responsibility of the Musée d’Orsay, also documents his graphic work on this figure.

Works recorded at auction