PAUL CHABAS (FRENCH 1869 - 1937), THE LILY watercolour heightened with white on paper, signed 50cm x 38.5cm Framed and under glass. Note: Paul Chabas was born in Nantes, and trained under William-Adolphe Bouguereau and Tony Robert-Fleury. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1890. Chabas won the Prix National at the 1899 Paris Salon with his Joyeux Ébats. He was awarded a gold medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1900 and in 1912 received the Médaille d'honneur. His preferred subject was the female nude in a natural setting. He was, and still is, considered to be one of Europe's greatest painters of nudes. His most famous painting, September Morn (1912), became a ''Succès de scandale'' in the United States in May, 1913. There was much publicity, and reproductions of the painting sold briskly for years afterwards. Chabas said he did not originally intend to sell the painting, because it was his wife's favorite. When he entered the painting in the Paris Salon of 1912, he set a price of $10,000, which he believed no one would pay. Leon Mantashev, son of oil magnate Alexander Mantashev, was willing to meet this price, and the painting was sold to him. In the 1890s, Chabas had illustrated books by such authors as Paul Bourget and Alfred de Musset. He also did some illustrating work for the French publisher Alphonse Lemerre. He became a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1921 and received the Légion d'honneur in 1928. From 1925 to 1935 he was president of the Société des Artistes Français. He died in Paris on May 10, 1937 and it was reported at the time that US buyers alone had purchased more that seven million reproductions of his paintings.