JEAN CAROLUS (Brussels, 1814 - Paris, 1897)."Petition for a hand", Brussels.Oil on canvas.Signed and located in the lower left corner.Size: 69 x 86 cm; 86 x 102 cm (frame).A Belgian painter specialising in genre and interior scenes, Jean Carolus spent most of his life in France, where he was renowned for his precious depictions of everyday scenes in interiors, mainly set in the 18th century. Carolus trained in Belgium, where he was the protégé of François-Joseph Navez, director of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Brussels. In 1855 he was already in France, where he had a prolific career between then and 1880. He mainly created works featuring elegant aristocratic characters, generally in relaxed, gallant and hedonistic scenes. Carolus chose the subject matter of his paintings with care, focusing mainly on portraits of 18th-century high society, French interiors and gardens. His personal language combines a highly luminous colour palette with the expressive grace and elegance of his meticulously constructed figures. One of his most celebrated works is "Game of Billiards in the Time of Louis XV", an oil painting of 1855 now in the Flanders Fields Museum. Today he is mainly represented in private collections, although his work is also held by a number of European institutions.