New season exhibitions in Paris galleries

23/9/19 - Art market - Paris - Parisian exhibitions don’t wait for November and FAB to unfold. Until Saturday 28 September, the Ratton-Ladrière gallery is presenting an exhibition of sculptures and drawings. Drawings by sculptors, or related to sculpture, hence the title: ‘Dessiner la sculpture’. The catalogue is available online at this address.

The selection is rich, starting in the 14th-15th centuries with a white limestone king’s head by an artist from Burgundy, and ending in 1927 with a waxwork by Charles Despiau. For the sake of completeness, there are two even more recent works in the exhibition, but they are outside our chronological scope.

1. France, c. 1770-1780
Buste of a Gentleman
Marble - 83 x 58 x 28 cm
Paris, Galerie Ratton-Ladrière
Photo: Galerie Ratton-Ladrière

See the image in its page

Among the sculptures, in addition to the head already mentioned and a presumed highly expressive Self-portrait by Antoine-Laurent Dantan, there is another bust, anonymous but French, from the 18-th century (ill. 1). Although it may be possible to identify the model because of its provenance (it comes from the Château du Guilguiffin in Brittany), its author is even more difficult to find. The gallery mentions the name of Louis-Simon Boizot, for stylistic reasons, but cannot go any further. What remains is its undeniably high quality.

2. Guillaume Boichot (1735-1814)
Bacchanal
Pen, brown ink and grey wash - 24.3 x 32.5 cm
Paris, Galerie Ratton-Ladrière
Photo: Galerie Ratton-Ladrière

See the image in its page

Several sheets are also remarkable, and among these, after having hesitated with a drawing by Pierre-Jean David d’Angers, we will retain a Bacchanal by Guillaume Boichot, in pen and wash (ill. 2).
Although this artist, who was a painter, sculptor and architect, is best known as a representative of neoclassicism, the sheet presented by the Ladrière gallery is so influenced by the art of the School of Fontainebleau that…