Le grand Rabbin aumônier Abraham Bloch (The Chief Rabbi Abraham Bloch)

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

1917

Painting depicting man in hat holding a crucifix over a dying man in a bed.

Rabbi Abraham Bloch was a French army chaplain, killed in 1914 while holding a crucifix for a dying Catholic soldier. In 1934 the French government erected a monument in his memory at the spot where he was killed.

Credits

BnF Gallica.

Published in: The Posen Library of Jewish Culture and Civilization, vol. 7.

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Creator Bio

Lucien Lévy-Dhurmer

1865–1953

Born Lucien Lévy in Algiers, the artist Lucien moved to Paris in 1879. He was initially drawn to ceramics and experimented with metallic glazes and North African Islamic designs. Over time, Lévy was drawn toward painting, adopting the name Dhurmer from his mother’s family and moving away from his symbolist origins toward Raphaelite classicism and the bright hues of Impressionism, as represented in his Silence (1895) and Eve (1896). Lévy-Dhurmer turned also to landscape arts and interior decorating, designing the complete art nouveau Wisteria Room (1910–1914), the dining room in the Paris apartment of the engineer Auguste Rateau. In addition to these projects, Lévy-Dhurmer painted pastels and other works inspired by the music of Fauré, Debussy, and Beethoven. His wife, Emmy “Perla” Fournier, was the editor of La Fronde, a feminist newspaper.

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