Le Cloître de l'Art
About us
Founded in 2021 by Salomé Fischer (member of SLAM and SNCAO-GA, winner of the 2025 Marcus Prize), Le Cloître de l’Art is a Parisian gallery located at 16 rue de Grange Batelière, in the 9th arrondissement, in the heart of the Art Drouot district, shared with the Artwins gallery. A warm and timeless space where ancient art meets modernity, offering our clientele a haven of beauty and grace.
With a symbolist and mystical spirit, the Cloître de l’Art gallery presents a selection of drawings and engravings, paintings, and objets d’art, primarily from the 19th and 20th centuries (Maurice Chabas, Louis Janmot, Charles-Clos Olsommer, Victor Prouvé), periodically juxtaposed with works by contemporary artists who share this vision (Elen Bezhen, Harold Hermann, Sasha Katz, Stéphanie Montagut).
Framed with care and originality, the poetic gaiety of the Liberty Art Nouveau style mingles with the spirituality of the Lyon School and the Nabis, all contrasted by the mysteries of Franco-Belgian symbolism and the folklore of the Slavic soul.
The works presented are the fruit of in-depth comparative research, highlighting a particular historical, literary, or stylistic context of creation. Promoting artists sometimes fallen into oblivion, the Cloître de l’Art gallery publishes one or two monographic or thematic catalogs each year to coincide with fairs and exhibitions such as: “Camille-Auguste Gastine, The Devotee of the Line,” “Symbolism in the Feminine,” and “Mystical Brittany.”
The gallery participates in art fairs in Paris, including the Rare Book & Graphic Arts Fair at the Grand Palais and the Modern Art Fair at Place de la Concorde. She is pleased to participate in the 2025 edition of Antica Fine Art fair in Namur, Belgium.
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Arthur LAUBLIN (Mons, 1900 – Blaregnies, 1987) Ascension Lunaire
A Belgian artist ripe for rediscovery, Arthur Laublin, a painter of allegorical scenes and portraits, draftsman, and decorator, began his studies at the Mons Academy in 1919 under Émile Motte, Alfred Duriau, and Louis Greuze. He completed his training at the Brussels Academy with Jean Delville, Constant Montald, and Anto-Carte, three important Symbolist painters who exerted a profound influence on him. From 1925 to 1961, he taught graphic arts at the Mons Academy and was a member of the Bon Vouloir group. From 1914 onward, the Mons group established itself as a young circle, open to all innovative trends and artistic techniques. While not a member, a second artistic movement influenced Laublin's career: the Nervia group, a highly influential Walloon pictorial movement in the 1930s whose name refers to the Nervii, an ancient Gallic tribe opposed to Caesar. Endowed with evident technical skill, these Walloon artists rejected the avant-garde at all costs, advocating instead a harmonious and idealistic art, championing a figuration poised between dream and reality. The young Laublin, with this idealistic painting, aligns himself with the Nervian tradition, as exemplified by our lunar woman. Draped in a Botticelli-esque floral veil with Magritte-like bird-blues, this modern Selene, with her surrealist modeling, fascinates with the strangeness of her protean symbolism. Beyond iconography, the image's power lies in its presence. Laublin demonstrates this by virtuously modulating his chromatic palette from vivid blues to pinks, in subtle nuances of a soft, vaporous, and cloudy white. With her long, flowing blonde hair and closed eyes, this young beauty elevates us toward a dreamlike beyond. Artistic creation and aesthetic delight converge here in a shared contemplative introspection, at the end of which matter appears spiritualized.
Élisabeth SONREL (1874, Tours – 1953, Sceaux) Le Sommeil de la Vierge
Born into the provincial bourgeoisie, Elisabeth Sonrel received her early training in Tours under her father, Nicolas-Stéphane, and later in Paris at the Académie Julian under Jules Lefèbvre, who influenced her taste for Symbolist portraits of women. An admirer of the Renaissance, and particularly of Botticelli, she exhibited at the Salon from 1893 onwards, showing works quite faithful to the spirit of the Florentine master. These works blended Symbolist, mystical, and allegorical elements in a soft, pale palette, featuring Virgins and angels rendered in a rather elongated style, set in landscapes with trees of elongated trunks and simplified foliage. However, she did not belong to the Symbolist movement proper and appears to have had no connection with artists such as Alphonse Osbert or Maurice Denis. The influence of the English Pre-Raphaelites is also evident. At the very end of the 1890s, her style evolved towards Art Nouveau, with works sometimes reminiscent of Mucha, featuring highly contrasting colors. Our watercolor is either the work exhibited at the Salon or a preparatory version. Indeed, Salon critics at the time referred to it as a "large watercolor." While our drawing is of a respectable size, does it truly correspond to this subjective description? We are more inclined to believe it is a modello, especially since the sheet is dated 1894. The painting, "The Sleeping Virgin," was awarded the Henri Lehmann Prize, a triennial prize of 3,000 francs awarded by the Academy of Fine Arts to encourage the classical studies of a painter under 25. The drawing was acquired for personal use by President Félix Faure and, reflecting its success, was reproduced extensively at the time. The Russian Empress Alexandra Feodorovna also owned a reproduction of our watercolor, which hung in her Mauve Room in the Tsarskoye Selo Palace, and which disappeared during the Second World War.
Ernest FAUT (Gand, 1879 – Louvain, 1961) Orphée et Eurydice s’envolant avec Pégase
Trained at the Brussels Academy under the Symbolist painter Constant Montald, Ernest Faut then studied at the Leuven Academy under the sculptor Constantin Meunier. Marked by melancholy, his works all display a powerful technique modulated by a delicate and sensitive chromatic palette, entirely in chiaroscuro. In the 1930s, his work consisted primarily of Symbolist scenes in the Art Nouveau style. Having become a professor and then director for forty years until 1944 at the Leuven Academy, Ernest Faut's works are exhibited in several Belgian museums, notably the Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent and the Museum of Fine Arts in Leuven. This exceptional set of four monumental drawings, executed with exquisite and delicate technique, is being shown for the first time and recounts the tragic love story of Orpheus and Eurydice. Having inspired numerous works of art, music, and literature throughout the centuries, this tale symbolizes the power of love, the pain of loss, and the fragility of the human condition. Imbued with the esoteric idealism of Jean Delville, Faut chooses here to reinterpret the myth through a biblical lens. Elegant and androgynous, his neo-Greek figures reflect a quest for spirituality and eternity. Their serpentine bodies oscillate between purity and sensuality. Carried to the heavens by Pegasus, Eurydice here sorrowfully crowns her lover. A white, winged, and divine horse, Pegasus embodies freedom and elevation, his wings allowing him to rise above earthly concerns and reach spiritual heights. Often associated with the Muses, Pegasus is also considered an emblem of poetic inspiration and creativity. As for his white coat, it signifies purity and innocence. An immortal creature, it constitutes a symbol of transcendence. This iconography is part of the development of an art described as Idealist, close to Symbolism.
Georges von HOESSLIN - Vierge au Papillon - (Budapest, 1851– Munich, 1923)
Cosmopolitan and a traveler from birth, Georges von Hoesslin came from a patrician family in Augsburg. He was born in Budapest, where his father was away on business, and later grew up in the United States, where his father, Theodor, provided him with a commercial education. In 1871, at the age of twenty, he began studying drawing in Munich under Alexander Strähuber at the School of Applied Arts and the Academy of Fine Arts. The progressive monumentality of his painting testifies to an artistic liberation. His compositions are striking for their gravity, sometimes austere, which nevertheless reveals a melancholic and dreamy sensibility. A Symbolist masterpiece, our painting depicts the Virgin in Majesty enthroned on a golden throne, an element borrowed from both Byzantine art and Jugendstil. Clad in a long red robe with shimmering, silken draperies, a white cloth covers her head and shoulders. Adopting an expression that is at once serious, gentle, and melancholic, this Madonna with clear eyes holds a black book on her lap, a reference to the Bible and the Tablets of the Law, symbols of knowledge of the mysteries. Seated at her feet on the pedestal is a naked Christ Child with red hair, offering her an apple in his outstretched left hand, both an echo of the forbidden fruit of the Garden of Eden and a prefiguration of Christ's sacrifice. To the left, a multicolored butterfly flutters in the blue, symbolizing the soul and the Resurrection. This mysterious scene unfolds in an equally ethereal mountain landscape. The upper background, dominated by deep, dark blue mountain peaks, creates a striking contrast with the golden sky, evoking the sacred and eternity. Below, a sea of cottony clouds suggests the altitude of the two figures. A true epiphany, His Virgin with Butterfly transcends religious iconography to offer a poetic meditation on the soul, art and eternity.
Odon MOIRET (Budapest, 1883 – Vienne, 1966)- Figure Mystique
Sculptor, architect, and medallist, Odön Moiret trained in Budapest, Vienna, and Brussels. From 1906 onwards, he participated in international exhibitions and later became a professor at the Polytechnic School of Budapest. The style and themes of his often Symbolist sculpture are directly influenced by the spirit of the Gödöllő School. Of all the artist colonies inspired by the ideals of John Ruskin and William Morris, the one at Gödöllő, near Budapest, was the closest to the principles of the Arts and Crafts movement. Transylvania was the primary source of inspiration for the Gödöllő artists, and their interior designs reflected a search for a new national art. Odön Moiret, aligned with this movement, produced numerous medals, friezes, sculptural decorative ensembles, and architectural projects. The Hungarian National Gallery in Budapest holds bas-reliefs, plaques, and more than one hundred sketches by this artist. Our pastel, shown in profile, echoes this body of work. The face, turned left in profile, depicts a figure with closed eyes conveying an expression of contemplation and religious fervor. Wrapped in an intense royal blue drape covering the head, the hands are joined or crossed on the chest in a gesture of prayer. The strong and dramatic color contrast outlines a glowing yellow halo, creating a radiant spiritual effect, while the dark background sprinkled with small stars evokes a night sky or cosmic space. In a rough and textured style, the artist uses vivid and bold colors with a strong line, giving the whole composition an emotional force and mystical intensity, at the crossroads between Symbolism and the Viennese Secession.