Adolphe Lalyre (1848-1933)

Nude of a Young Mermaid, oil on panel, ca. 1900.

Also written Adolphe Lalire or La Lyre, was a French academic painter born in Rouvres-en-Woëvre in 1848. He died in Courbevoie in 1933. After graduating from the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1875, he exhibited at the Salon des Artistes Français between 1876 and 1929. Initially working with religious subjects, he soon began painting female nudes and mythological water nymphs, earning her the nickname "the mermaid painter." After discovering the Cotentin region in 1872, she moved to Carteret where she built a villa, known as the "Mermaid Castle." He also designed the stained glass windows of the choir of the church of Saint-Germain, destroyed in 1941. A member of the Association of French Artists from 1880, he received a medal at the Universal Exhibitions in Paris in 1889 and 1900. He was also an art critic, who wrote: "Le Nu féminin à travers les âges" (The Female Nude Through the Centuries), published in 1910.