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- 1. Antoine Rivalz (1667-1735)
Perseus and the Sea Monster
Black stone and white chalk - 55.6 x 38.5 cm
From Nicolas Schwed
Photo: Nicolas Schwed - See the image in its page
27/3/23 - Art Market - Paris - While the Salon du Dessin closes its doors this Monday evening, the party continues for lovers of fine sheets as new sales are planned during this week (see news item 26/3/23) while several gallerists are very happily extending their exhibitions during April. Let’s start on rue Saint-Honoré with Nicolas Schwed who inaugurated his traditional spring exhibition in mid-March, but continues it until 7 April. So there are still ten days to admire this selection from which stand out two large sheets by Antoine Rivalz and Pierre Subleyras - the master and the student - presented face to face. The spectacular drawing (ill. 1) by Rivalz, whose cinematographic quality is judiciously emphasised in the catalogue notice, shows the hero Perseus at his best, busy slaying the sea monster that was holding Andromeda. Absent from the composition, the princess is most likely hidden between her saviour and the creature: the figure of Perseus, accompanied by a swirling drapery, occupies the entire surface of the sheet, which has also retained its original mounting.
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- 2. Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749)
Study of a Reclining Man
Black stone and white chalk - 26.5 x 35.4 cm
From Nicolas Schwed
Photo: Nicolas Schwed - See the image in its page
Also unpublished, Pierre Subleyras’s drawing (ill. 2) prepares one of the figures for his famous composition depicting Saint Camille de Lellis saves the sick of the Hospital of the Holy Spirit during the flooding of the Tiber in 1598, commissioned in view of the latter’s canonization by Pope Benedict XIV in June 1746. Given to the pontiff, who hung it in his flats in the Quirinal Palace, the large painting is now kept in the Museo di Roma. For this painting, one of the most admired of eighteenth-century Rome, Subleyras made several preparatory drawings and sketches, including this one, in which the patient being evacuated on a stretcher visible on the right of the canvas can be recognized.
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- 3. Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762)
Love Games with the Attributes of Hercules
Sanguine on paper, mounted in a snuffbox - 7.6 cm
From Nicolas Schwed
Photo: Nicolas Schwed - See the image in its page
Let’s continue with a seductive object as this delightful little sanguine by Bouchardon (ill. 3) has been mounted in a snuffbox! In the background, several little lovers are playing with Hercules’ attributes - his helmet, his lion skin and, of course, his club - while another, with a mischievous look in his eyes, is about to shoot an arrow with his little bow. The Department of Graphic Arts of the Louvre Museum holds a variant of this drawing, a counter-proof that belonged to Pierre-Jean Mariette and was purchased for the king. An identical description can be found in the after-death inventory of the Marquis de Marigny, as well as in his sale, where the small sanguine is described as "charming subject full of grace and spirit", but it was not until several years later that the drawing came to adorn the box, which its hallmarks situate around 1819, during the Restoration.
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- 4. Nicolas Vleughels (1668-1737)
Sleeping Diana, c. 1725
Black stone, blur and white chalk highlights - 22.5 x 48.5 cm
Galerie Alexis Bordes
Photo: Alexis Bordes - See the image in its page
In Rue de la Paix, Alexis Bordes inaugurated his new exhibition on the same day as the Salon du Dessin, but it continues throughout April. We have chosen a large sheet by Nicolas Vleughels (ill. 4) drawn on blue paper, which irresistibly reminds us of a sanguine by François Boucher kept at the École des beaux-arts de Paris. The discreet presence of the bow adds a mythological connotation to these female academies, which were obviously used in a study context, since it is possible to think, as suggested in the catalogue entry written by Mégane Ollivier, that Boucher - then a resident of the Académie de France in Rome under the direction of Nicolas Vleughels - copied this composition, opting for a different medium.
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- 5. André Lebrun (1737-1811)
Venus Asking Vulcan
for Aeneas, c. 1780
Pen and brown ink, brown wash over black stone lines - 44.5 x 64 cm
Galerie Alexis Bordes
Photo : Alexis Bordes - See the image in its page
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- 6. André Lebrun (1737-1811)
The Resurrection of Lazarus, c. 1780
Pen and brown ink, brown wash over black stone lines - 45 x 61.4 cm
Galerie Alexis Bordes
Photo: Alexis Bordes - See the image in its page
We are then delighted to be able to admire once again two large drawings by André Lebrun (ill. 5 and 6) emblematic of the manner of this artist, better known since the recent research of Camille Brunaux: if they are hung together, they constitute false counterparts, if only because of their mythological subject matter on one side and religious on the other. This pupil of Pigalle also studied at the Académie de France in Rome, but made a career in Poland, where he became First Sculptor to Stanislas Auguste Poniatowski before moving to Saint Petersburg. Within his abundant graphic corpus, however, few sheets are linked to sculptures, and these two drawings are no exception and are not even linked to a known cycle.
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- 7. Eugène Lami (1800-1980)
Interior view of the Duke of Nemours’ stables, 1834
Watercolour on paper - 25 x 39 cm
Photo: Louis Barrand - See the image in its page
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- 8. Eugène Lami (1800-1980)
The Forgotten Umbrella, c. 1835
Watercolour on paper - 15 x 25 cm
Galerie Louis Barrand
Photo : Louis Barrand - See the image in its page
Let us finish with a young dealer, Louis Barrand, who dedicated his exhibition "Bestiaire" to the late Eugène Lami specialist Caroline Imbert, who passed away in July 2022. If we admire works by René Hérisson (1857-1940) and Jacques Despierre (1912-1995), let us retain two attractive watercolours (ill. 7 and 8) by the tasty "poet of official dandyism", according to Baudelaire’s lovely word. Lami had a keen interest in horses and began his career in Horace Vernet’s studio before joining that of Baron Gros. Author of numerous scenes of hunting and racing, we also owe him a true portrait of Baba-Ali, favourite horse of the Duc d’Aumale, preempted by the Musée Condé of the Château de Chantilly a few years ago (see the news item of 18/10/15). The view of the interior of the stables of another member of the d’Orléans family, the Duc de Nemours, should no doubt follow suit soon, while other sheets by the artist - currently on display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris (article to follow) - are still awaiting their admirers on avenue Franklin D. Roosevelt, where Louis Barrand is due to extend his exhibition until mid-April.
