The Musée d’Orsay buys a new Gérôme

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1. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
Child with a Mask, c. 1840-1856
Oil on canvas - D. 50 cm
Paris, Musée d’Orsay
Photo: Gallery 19C
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16/5/23 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée d’Orsay - While Jean-Léon Gérôme is not uncommon on the art market, it was a puzzling effigy that awaited enthusiasts on the Gallery 19C booth at last Tefaf in Maastricht (see article): this Child with a Mask intrigues at first glance and could not escape the Musée d’Orsay team, who came in pack to the fair. Reserved since its opening, it now joins a reference collection for the artist, regularly and judiciously expanded in recent years. Unsigned, this tondo was never exhibited during the painter’s lifetime and remained with his family for a long time: given by Gérôme to his sister-in-law Blanche Goupil and then passed down from generation to generation, it reached the art market in the 1990s and was recently owned by Terence Garnett, who had assembled a fine group of works by the artist in California. The American collector exhibited it in Washington in 2007 and lent it to the major retrospective organized at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles and the Musée d’Orsay in Paris (see article) as well as to the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in 2010-2011.

2. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
The Merchant of Masks, also called The Comedians, 1863 ?
Oil on panel - 23 x 16 cm
Compiègne, Museum of the Second Empire
Photo: RMN-GP/G. Blot
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In his rich catalog, Édouard Papet already insisted on the iconographic strangeness of such a composition exploiting the child portrait in an allegorical manner, while recalling the importance occupied by masks in the artist’s imagination. This painting, both serious and whimsical, represents a child whose identity remains mysterious: it cannot be the artist’s son, born in 1865, nor his nephew, born two years later. The effigy irresistibly evokes The Merchant of Masks, also known as The Comedians, painting (ill. 2) MNR entrusted to the custody of French museums pending its return to its rightful owners. This sketch bears a dedication "to his friend Cléry", which refers to the artist’s brother-in-law, Léon Cléry (1831-1904), husband of Blanche Goupil, whose sister Marie had married Jean-Léon Gérôme.

3. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
Portrait of a Child, 1844
Oil on canvas - 38.1 cm
Current location unknown
Photo: Sotheby’s
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In the rich catalogue entry she devotes to the painting on the gallery’s website, Emily M. Weeks seductively imagines that these two compositions sharing the same initial provenance could have been hung as pendants, despite obvious differences in format as well as in date of execution. On the other hand, one cannot help but relate the Child with a Mask to another tondo, offered by the Didier Aaron gallery in the 1990s and reappearing at Sotheby’s (ill. 3) in New York in May 2018. Both paintings were published at the same time by Gerald M. Ackerman, specialist of the artist, in his revised monograph in 2000. No props here, despite a comparable format and palette. Both children are depicted in three-quarter view, bathed in the same lateral light.

4. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1901)
Woman’s Head with Ram’s Horns, also known as The Bacchante, 1853
Oil on canvas - 47.5 cm
Nantes, Arts Museum
Photo: RMN-GP/G. Blot
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In the catalog of the retrospective organized in 2010-2011, the Child with a Mask was preceded by another "introspective tondo with a mysterious subject", according to Édouard Papet’s formula: the famous Bacchante in the Nantes museum. This Woman’s Head with Ram’s Horns (ill. 4) remains as ambiguous as one could wish, but the mythological intention is much clearer, even if one also imagines that one must see in this figure a character dressed for a costume party, which Gérôme showed how tragic the consequences can be. In any case, we can only be delighted to see the Musée d’Orsay add such a singular work to its collection of Gérôme’s works: ever more representative of the artist’s diversity, the collection housed on the banks of the Seine is enriched year by year as the art market offers opportunities.

5. Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904)
Markos Botsaris, 1874
Oil on canvas - 70.2 x 54.6 cm
Current location unknown
Photo: Christie’s
See the image in its page

While the Young Greeks Beating Cocks of 1846 had reached the Musée du Luxembourg by 1873, institutional recognition was generally slower, despite the commission of the Century of Augustus: Birth of N.S. Jesus Christ for the Musée de Picardie. The Greek Interior and Night were acquired for the opening of the Musée d’Orsay, while the extraordinary Jerusalem was bought from Christie’s in New York in 1990. 2004 was also a good year, marked by the purchase of the portrait of Charlotte de Rothschild and then The Reception of the Grand Conde (see the news item of 28/10/04) As we wrote at the time, all that is missing is an Orientalist painting "which constitutes the best of Gérôme’s work and transcends the genre": the observation is unfortunately still valid. How can we not think of the formidable Markos Botsaris of 1874, the jewel in the crown of Terence Garnett’s collection? This one (ill. 5) was sold at Christie’s in New York in October 2019, fetching more than three million dollars, far from the budgets of French museums...

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