A sketch attributed to Jean-Baptiste Deshays acquired by Langres

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18/4/23 - Acquisition - Langres, Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot - As we stated in the recent news items on the pair of paintings from Joseph Vernet’s studio (see news item of 16/3/23) and the drawing by Pierre-Alexandre Wille (see news item of 5/4/23) acquired by the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot, the latter is pursuing an active acquisition policy at the time of its tenth anniversary. The entry into its collections of a painted sketch attributed to Jean-Baptiste Deshays (ill. 1) is a further illustration. It was purchased from the Parisian gallery F. Baulme Fine Arts gallery in Paris with the financial support of the State, the Grand Est region and the company Plastic Omnium.


1. Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Deshays (1729-1765)
Saint Victor Overturning the Altar of the False Gods
Oil on paper mounted on canvas - 75 x 52 cm
Langres, Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot
Photo : Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot
See the image in its page

Probably preparatory to one of the four large religious paintings presented by Jean-Baptiste Deshays at the 1761 Salon - the now lost Saint Victor Condemned to Martyrdom - this sketch, like the two paintings attributed to Joseph Vernet’s workshop mentioned above, joins the already preserved corpus of works that were commented on by Diderot at the Salon between 1759 and 1781 in the Langroise collections. Destined for "an abbey in Normandy" for which it had been commissioned before August 1761, Saint Victor was presented alongside The Flagellation of Saint Andrew, Saint Peter Released from Prison and Saint Benedict Dying Receiving the Viaticum, which are now respectively kept in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen, the Saint-Louis Cathedral in Versailles and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orléans. If the four great paintings received praise from the critics as a whole, Saint Victor and Saint Benedict particularly enthused Diderot who declared: "This painter, my friend, is in my opinion the first painter of the nation". Then at the beginning of his very promising official career - received at the Academy in 1758 with Hector’s Body preserved by Venus from corruption (Montpellier, Musée Fabre), crowned with success at his first Salon in 1759, entrusted with important commissions, notably for the Royal Manufacture of Beauvais, and at the head of a workshop of a dozen pupils - Deshays was already among Diderot’s most appreciated artists. The latter repeated his praise at the next Salon in 1763 - in particular for the Marriage of the Holy Virgin (Douai, collegiate church of Saint-Pierre) - which was the last one in which the artist participated during his lifetime. In February 1765, he died prematurely at the age of thirty-five.

As Olivier Caumont, director of the Culture Department of the City of Langres and curator of its museums, points out in his detailed note, however likely it may be, the link between the sketch acquired by Langres and the work presented at the Salon of 1761 cannot be proven in the present state of knowledge. The monumental final composition - 327 x 196 cm - is known to date only from the two analyses of the painting delivered at the time of the Salon - Diderot’s fairly precise commentary and that of L’Observateur littéraire -, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin’s schematic sketch at the Salon and a preparatory sketch, of disputed attribution, preserved by the Louvre Museum (ill. 2), whose composition corresponds to the descriptions. The attribution of the latter to Deshays was rejected by André Bancel in his monograph on the artist published by Arthena in 2008, who considers it to be a "copy of a sketch by Deshays, made by one of his pupils in his studio". The author adds, however, that Alastair Laing considered the attribution to Deshays to be plausible on the basis of a reproduction.


2. Attributed to the workshop of Jean-Baptiste Deshays (1729-1765)
Saint Victor Overthrowing the Idols
Oil on canvas - 75 x 54 cm
Paris, Musée du Louvre
Photo : Paris, Musée du Louvre
See the image in its page

Although five autograph preparatory sketches are listed by André Bancel, only one is not lost and is illustrated in the book. It was sold at Tajan in 1996 and is kept in a private collection. Although it does represent the martyrdom of Saint Victor, the episode we can see - the executioner is about to cut off the foot of the saint stripped of his armour and shield - comes after the one depicted in the final painting as described by Diderot: "Fanaticism and its silent atrocity reign over all the faces in his painting of St Victor; it is in this old praetor who questions him; and in this pontiff who holds a knife that he is sharpening; and in the saint whose looks reveal the insanity of his mind, and in the soldiers who have seized him and are holding him. These are all astonished faces. How these figures are distributed, characterized, draped! how simple and great everything is! the awful, but beautiful poetry! the praetor is raised on his platform. He orders. The scene takes place below. The beautiful accessories! This broken Jupiter; this overturned altar; this spilled inferno; what an effect between these ferocious natures produces this young acolyte, with a gentle and charming physiognomy, kneeling between the priest and the saint. To the left of the viewer, the praetor and his assistants on a platform; underneath on the same side, the priest, his god and his overturned altar; next to him, towards the middle, the young acolyte; to the right, the St. standing and bound; behind the saint, the soldiers who brought him. This is the picture. They say that St. Victor looks more like a man who insults, who braves, than a firm and quiet man who fears nothing and waits. Let them say so. Let us remember the lines that Corneille put in the mouth of Polyeucte. Let us imagine from these lines the figure of the fanatic who utters them, and we will see Deshays’ St Victor". As André Bancel points out, this sketch therefore corresponds to an initial thought that was not retained by the commissioner.

According to Olivier Caumont, the sketch acquired by Langres, with dimensions and composition very similar to that in the Louvre, could be one of the four others listed in the monograph. Although its history is not known, it could correspond to P.96, the "Tableau, fait à la presto" that passed in Baudouin’s sale after his death on 15 February 1770 under the probably erroneous title of Saint Hyppolite Overturning the Altar of the False God. While its dimensions correspond, the technique mentioned - oil on canvas and not oil on paper - differs. However, this technique, defined on the basis of 18th-century auction catalogues and the evasive mention of "Tableau, fait à la presto", could be imprecise, especially as Deshays is especially known for his sketches on paper. Although the disappearance of the final altarpiece makes it impossible to attest to this, the sketch that went to Langres and the one in the Louvre could testify to the choice of composition that was finally made. They both present the elements mentioned by Diderot: "the praetor [...] on his platform", "this overturned altar; this spilled inferno", "this young acolyte kneeling between the priest and the saint", "the praetor and his assistants raised on a platform", "behind the saint the soldiers who brought him".

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