25/3/23 - Art market - Paris - While the Salon du Dessin is in full swing (see article, as every year, in addition to auctions devoted to graphic art, many galleries also present exhibitions, making the whole of Paris a great drawing fair. So we try, as in the previous news item and again at the beginning of next week, to list and briefly describe all these events, trying not to forget any, and to publish our articles before they close, some of them being very short.
The Nouvelle-Athènes district also contributes to this abundance, starting with the gallery that bears that name and which presents a catalogue twice a year, either of drawings (in March) or of paintings, in November, always accompanied by a catalogue and detailed notes, which is of undeniable interest.
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- 1. Louis-Jean Desprez (1743-1804)
Reconstruction of a Temple of Isis in Pompeii, c. 1779-1781
Ink and watercolour - 22 x 36.5 cm
Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes
Photo: Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes - See the image in its page
Although still focused on the nineteenth century, the chronological scope is often somewhat broader. Thus the first work we reproduce (ill. 1) actually dates from the eighteenth century, since it is a drawing by Louis-Jean Desprez with a slightly fantastic atmosphere, as this one has the secret. In the Besançon museum there is another version of this sheet which served as a model for the engraving.
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- 2. Stéphanie de Virieu (1785-1873)
Death and the Poet, c. 1819-1823
Black pencil and white chalk -
16.6 x 20.9 cm
Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes
Photo: Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes - See the image in its page
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- 3. Stéphanie de Virieu (1785-1873)
In the Arms of Death, c. 1823
Pencil, ink wash and white gouache - 19.6 x 25.9 cm
Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes
Photo: Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes - See the image in its page
A set of four drawings introduces Stéphanie de Virieu, a fascinating artist and friend of Lamartine, who here produces fantastic compositions of exaggerated gothic romanticism. In two of them, the figure of death, represented as a skeleton wearing a veil, comes to fetch either a young man (perhaps an illustration of Lamartine’s poem, The Dying Poet - ill. 2), and sometimes a young woman. In another (ill. 3), the same young woman is carried away like Saint Catherine, but not by angels: by veiled skeletons that have multiplied!
A final drawing shows a ruined medieval tower, which forms the setting for a fantastic tale as was so popular at the time, around Charles Nodier or Théophile Gautier.
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- 4. Jacques-Louis de La Hamayde de Saint-Ange (1780-1860)
Interior View of the Palais Brongniart, ca. 1827
Watercolour and ink lines - 30.5 x 45.2 cm
Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes
Photo: Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes - See the image in its page
Let us end this short selection with an interior view of the Palais Brongniart (but without the Salon du Dessin!) by Jacques-Louis de La Hamayde de Saint-Ange, a collaborator of Percier and Fontaine who had also worked for Alexandre Brongniart. This watercolour (ill. 4) was executed shortly before the completion of the building site for this monument.
On Rue Chaptal there is another gallery called... Chaptal, quite simply, run by Emmanuel Roucher and Julien Petit. For the occasion, they invited Daniel Greiner, whose gallery is located in the Passage Véro-Dodat, with whom they presented an exhibition (unfortunately without a catalogue) devoted to artists’ figures and studio scenes.
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- 5. Eugène Le Poittevin (1806-1870)
Two Artists Drawing a Dead Horse
Pen and brown ink, brown wash - 17 x 22 cm
Galerie Chaptal and Galerie Daniel Greiner
Photo: Galerie Chaptal and Galerie Daniel Greiner - See the image in its page
We have selected two works from this exhibition. The first is a sheet by an artist we will have the opportunity to talk about again very soon, since works related to him were acquired this week at auction by two museums: it is Eugène Le Poittevin, to whom an exhibition was recently devoted by the Musée de Fécamp (see article). The sheet shows two draughtsmen sketching a dead horse in a landscape, in wash. One of them is probably Le Poittevin himself, since another drawing is known in which the same dead horse is shown from both artists’ points of view.
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- 6. France, 19th century
Painter in his Studio
Oil on canvas - 55 x 45 cm
Galerie Chaptal and Galerie Daniel Greiner
Photo: Galerie Chaptal and Galerie Daniel Greiner - See the image in its page
The other is a painting, and it is anonymous. It shows a painter in his studio, sitting on a high stool, executing a landscape. A landscape of invention, then (unless he is using sketches made in the open air, but which we cannot see near him). This work, which discreetly takes us into the intimacy of this artist, whose consciousness of being observed is not apparent, is delightful.
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- 7. António Campelo (active in the second half of the 16th century)
Noli Me Tangere
Pen, brown ink wash, white highlights
Telesio Gallery
Photo: Telesio Gallery - See the image in its page
If there is still some time left to see these two exhibitions (the one at the Nouvelle Athènes ends on 31 March - it had already started a fortnight ago - and the one at the Chaptal gallery on 1 April), there is only today, Saturday, left to go to Antoine Tarantino’s gallery (present at the Salon du Dessin), which is hosting the exhibition of Christophe Defrance (Telesio gallery), who is presenting there, in addition to the Iberian drawings that he has long made a speciality of, French and Italian sheets. We reproduce here (there is no catalogue) two drawings showing the Magdalene, the first in her encounter with Christ after his resurrection (ill. 7), the second where she dies assisted by putti (ill. 8).
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- 8. Sebastián Herrera Barnuevo (1619-1671)
The Death of the Magdalene
Pen and brown ink wash
Telesio Gallery
Photo: Telesio Gallery - See the image in its page
The Noli me tangere is by a Portuguese artist of the second half of the 16th century, António Campelo, whose drawings are almost as rare as his paintings. The Death of the Magdalene is by a Spaniard who had an important official career in Madrid, since he was the painter to Charles II from 1667. Sebastián Herrera Barnuevo, a pupil of Alonso Cano, was also appointed Intendant of El Escorial in 1671. Despite this, few of his works are preserved today.
Practical information:
Galerie La Nouvelle Athènes, until 31 March 2023, 22 rue Chaptal, 75009, Paris.
Galerie Chaptal, "Peintres et modèles", until 1 April 2023. 7 rue Chaptal, 75009, Paris.
Galerie Telesio, at the Galerie Tarantino, until 25 March 2023, 38 rue Saint-Georges, 75009, Paris.