Alexandre SÉON (1855 - 1917) Portrait of Charles Dumas in a Symbolist Landscape (1881-1914) Black pencil, red chalk sketch and colored pencil highlights on beige paper. Signed, dated and dedicated lower right "Au poète, Charles Dumas, 1901". (Slightly oiled, small foxing, small folds at edges). 46 x 57.7 cm A pupil of Lehmann, friend and collaborator of Puvis de Chavannes, Alexandre Séon was a Symbolist painter. Between 1892 and 1897, Séon was very active in the Péladan brotherhood, whose aim was to defend idealist art, with tradition as its basis and Beauty as its means, and to fight against realism. He took part in the Salons de la Rose + Croix, which brought together French and European symbolist artists, and produced frontispieces and other drawings for Péladan and his followers. In 1890, he discovered the island of Bréhat and, fascinated by its red rocks, bought a fisherman's cottage there. We can compare our drawing with a painting entitled La Fille de la mer (1903), which pays homage to shipwrecked sailors.