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Core Record |
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| Title | George Sim in his Workshop, Aberdeen | |
| Collection | Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums | |
| Artist | Christen, Rodolphe (Swiss artist, 1859-1906) | |
| Date | 1890 (dated) | |
| Signed | yes | |
| Description | Rudolphe Christen was a Swiss artist, born at St Imier on 26 April 1859. The son of a shoemaker, he studied in Paris from 1879. In the 1880s he spent two years in Aberdeen, teaching drawing and painting at M. Desclayes' Collegiate School, where his brother Arnold was a teacher of languages. George Sim worked as a taxidermist and here is depicted in his workshop at 14 King Street, Aberdeen. He was the son of the well-known Aberdeen naturalist, also George Sim, author of The Vertebrate Fauna of 'Dee'. Christen travelled to Paris with the younger George Sim, where they shared a flat on the Rue Boissonade. | |
| Current Accession Number | ABDAG014134 | |
| Former Accession Number | R87 | |
| Inscription | front lr 'Rod. Christen 1890' | |
| Subject | interior; everyday life; portrait (Sim, George) | |
| Measurements | 56.2 x 47.2 cm cm (estimate) | |
| Material | oil on canvas | |
| Acquisition Details | Transferred from the Central Library 1999. | |
| Principal Exhibitions | Royal Hibernian Academy. | |
| Publications | Christen, S. M., The Story of an Artist's Life, London, 1910, p. 9, repro. in colour, p.19 facing; Deeside Field, no. 5, 1930, facing p. 2; Beaton, I. J., The Sims of Gourdas. Aberdeen; Aberdeen and NE Scotland, Family History Society, Aberdeen, 2001, pp. 33-34. | |
| Notes | Christen returned to Aberdeen from Paris after his marriage in 1900 and spent two years there, before settling on Deeside, where he lived from 1902 until his death on 7 September 1906. His distinctive chalet-style home is now the McEwan Gallery, near Ballater. |
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| Rights Owner | Aberdeen Art Gallery and Museums | |
| Author | Jennifer Melville | |