Four sketches by Joseph Blanc donated to Rennes by his society of friends

6/2/24 - Acquisition - Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts - Yesterday, the Société des amis du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes (Friends of the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes) made a particularly relevant acquisition at Rennes Enchères, for the reasonable sum of €2,100 excluding fees. It was on February 5, 1994, exactly thirty years before this sale, that the fire at the Parlement de Nantes took place. Four small sketches by Joseph Blanc, preparatory to the tapestries that decorated the building, were acquired as a gift to the museum.

1. Joseph Blanc (1846-1904)
Morality, History, Philosophy, Eloquence, 1900
Oil on canvas - 41 x 33 cm each
Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Rennes Enchères

See the image in its page

Having escaped the disaster, the tapestries were sent to two different workshops for restoration. As we mentioned in our article on the Rennes exhibition devoted to the hangings of the Parliament of Rennes, fate nonetheless struck: one of them was ravaged in turn by flames, wiping out some of the surviving tapestries.
Blanc’s four sketches, grouped in the same frame (ill. 1), represent Morality, History (ill. 2), Philosophy and Eloquence. Of the four definitive works they prepare, one burned, Morality, while the other three are still preserved (ill. 3) - they were in the other workshop - but now transferred, like all the surviving tapestries, to the Mobilier national.

2. Joseph Blanc (1846-1904)
History, 1900
Oil on canvas - 41 x 33 cm
Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Rennes Enchères

See the image in its page

3. Manufacture des Gobelins,
after Jean-Marie Laloy (1851-1927),
Joseph Blanc (1846-1904) and
Eugène Bidau (1839-1899)
History
Wool and silk - 310 x 284 cm
Paris, Mobilier national
Photo : Didier Rykner

See the image in its page

Joseph Blanc has been very well studied by Pierre Sérié, who devoted an excellent monograph to him in 2008, published by the École du Louvre, and who writes…