10/5/23 - Acquisitions - Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts - Of the 14 museum preemptions at the Talabardon & Gautier sales on 21 and 23 March, we have already dealt with six. Thanks to this news item, and to the once again remarkable activity of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, we will be able to discuss three more!
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- 1. Louis Hersent (1777-1860)
The Princess Betrothed to the King of Garba
Oil on canvas - 61.8 x 50.5 cm
Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
This museum was indeed able to take away three works, even if, as we shall see, it would have liked to obtain a fourth. The first (for €7,689 with expenses) is a painting by Louis Hersent (ill. 1) representing The Princess betrothed to the king of Garba. In any case, the lithograph which reproduces it (ill. 2) gives this title in full, that of a tale by La Fontaine, freely inspired by Bocacce’s Decameron. This identification is, however, rather strange because the episode depicted is not to be found in the tale in question. On the back of the work acquired by Orléans, we also read La courte paille (The Short Straw), which is at least entirely in keeping with the painted scene. It shows a young man casting lots for two young women. We do not know what is at stake, but since these are saucy tales, we can imagine that the winner will be favoured by the gallant. Although The Princess betrothed to the king of Garba narrates the multiple amorous adventures - more or less constrained - of its heroine Alaciel, daughter of King Zaïr, who marries the King of Garba while pretending to be a virgin, we do not see any passage that could correspond to this scene (and Olivia Voisin, director of the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans, confided to us that she had not specified the subject further). If some more knowledgeable reader can solve this irritating enigma, we will be grateful.
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- The Princess Betrothed to the King of Garba
Lithography - 32.5 x 23.4 cm
Philadelphia, Museum of Art
Photo : Philadelphia Museum of Art - See the image in its page
Louis Hersent, a pupil of Jean-Baptiste Regnault, had a fine official career although he was only awarded the Second Prix de Rome in 1797. He worked in a neoclassical style but often in a romantic spirit [1]. The Princess betrothed to the king of Garba, if the date of 1825 in pen on the reverse is correct, would probably be the culmination of a composition of which at least two other examples are known, one in the Musée La Fontaine in Château-Thierry (ill. 3), which looks more like a sketch, and the second in a private collection. Both are accompanied by a pendant entitled Joconde (ill. 4), also lithographed, and whose iconography we confess to also having difficulty understanding. The inscription Joconde on the back of the frame of this painting suggests that it too had a pendant of unknown location.
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- 3. Louis Hersent (1777-1860)
The Princess Betrothed to the King of Garba
Oil on paper mounted on canvas -
23.5 x 18.4 cm
Château-Thierry, Musée Jean de La Fontaine
Photo : Musée Jean de La Fontaine - See the image in its page
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- 3. Louis Hersent (1777-1860)
Gioconda
Oil on paper mounted on canvas -
23.5 x 18.4 cm
Château-Thierry, Musée Jean de La Fontaine
Photo : Musée Jean de La Fontaine - See the image in its page
This painting is in the troubadour style common at the time, even if it is not a scene from French history, which was not always the case, as works with literary subjects were also numerous in these characteristics: small or medium format, taste for anecdote and very smooth manner. One cannot help but be reminded of the art of Marguerite Gérard, to whom the two young women are reminiscent.
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- 5. Antoine-Auguste Thivet (1856-1927)
A Martyrdom
Oil on canvas - 59,7 x 82 cm
Orléans, Museum of Fine Arts
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
The second work preempted for €6,656 with costs - we will not follow the chronological order of execution - is a very surprising painting by Antoine-Auguste Thivet, (ill. 5) a pupil of Gérôme and the sculptor Aimé Millet. The artist painted orientalist scenes and portraits, but specialised in female nudes. At first glance, the picture shows a lustful body lying on a bed, but the title and a closer look at the work reveal the tragedy: the head is detached from the body, blood is gushing from the neck. This is a "martyr", although it is immediately clear that she was not a saint. This painting is in fact a very literal illustration of a poem by Charles Baudelaire in Les Fleurs du Mal, appropriately entitled Une Martyre.
Too long to quote here in full, we will only give a few extracts showing how close the painting is to the text:
"In the midst of perfume flasks, of sequined fabrics
And voluptuous furniture,
Of marble statues, pictures, and perfumed dresses
That trail in sumptuous folds, [...]
A headless cadaver pours out, like a river,
On the saturated pillow
Red, living blood, that the linen drinks up
As greedily as a meadow. [...]
A stare, blank and pallid as the dawn,
Escapes from the upturned eyeballs.
On the bed, the nude torso shamelessly displays
With the most complete abandon
The secret splendor and fatal beauty
That nature had bestowed on her;"
It is therefore a painting that could be described as romantic, even if it is late, thus justifying - in addition to its pictorial qualities - its entry into a museum whose collections constitute a reference in this field.
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- 6. Pierre Jean David, called David of Angers (1788-1856)
Achille Devéria, 1829
Bas-relief in red wax on slate - 15 x 13.4 cm
Orléans, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
We will end on a happy and sad story. Happy because it allows an important work by David d’Angers to enter a museum, sad because it could also have been accompanied by a nearby work (it is not a pendant, though it looks like one). And even sadder when one thinks that these two wax reliefs could have enriched the collections of the Musée de la Vie Romantique. But the acquisition, which had been reserved by the museum, and for which the financing had been completed, had finally been cancelled by the new director, Gaëlle Rio...
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- 7. Pierre Jean David, called David d’Angers (1788-1856)
Marceline Desbordes-Valmore, 1832
Bas-relief in red wax on slate - 14.1 x 12.5 cm
Current location unknown
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
While both works were offered in the Talabardon & Gautier sale, the Musée d’Orléans therefore positioned itself on one of them, while it gave priority to another museum for the second. A fatal error: the latter was unable to acquire its own, and it was sold to an unknown buyer. If he is reading these lines, he should know that Orléans would love nothing more than to reunite the two works, which are false pendants but which nevertheless respond remarkably to each other.
They are indeed wax portraits of two romantics, a writer and a painter. The painter is Achille Devéria, the writer Marceline Desbordes-Valmore. It is the first one that was preempted by the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Orléans (ill. 6) for 7,680 € (including fees), while the second one (ill. 7) went for 28,160 €.
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- 8. Pierre Jean David, called David d’Angers (1788-1856)
Achille Devéria, 1828
Bronze - 15 x 13.4 cm
Current location unknown
Photo : Artcurial - See the image in its page
David d’Angers is notably renowned for his bronze medals representing the personalities of the time. Although he also sometimes modelled his wax portraits, these are more rarely preserved. The one acquired by Orléans, dated 1829, cannot be a preparation for the medal representing Achille Devéria, a copy of which was sold by Artcurial (ill. 8) a few months ago with the Brooks Beaulieu collection, and which is dated 1828. It is therefore a work in itself.