Published in March 2024

Catalogue published to mark our participation in the Salon du Dessin 2024.

This is the 32nd edition of the Salon du Dessin, a major international event that showcases the finest works of ancient, modern and contemporary art and brings together all the events surrounding the graphic arts.

• The list of artists  Read
• Focus on the covert artwork  Read

The list of artists

In order of appearance in the catalogue

• Atelier de Francesco SQUARCIONE (Padoue 1397 – Padoue 1468)
• Hanns LAUTENSACK (Bamberg vers 1520 – Vienne 1565)
• Orazio SAMACCHINI (Bologne 1532 – Bologne 1577)
• Hans BOL (Malines 1534 – Amsterdam 1593)
• Alessandro ALLORI (Florence 1535 – Florence 1607)
• Peter de WITTE, dit Pietro CANDIDO (Bruges 1548 – Munich 1628)
• Abraham BLOEMAERT (Gorinchem 1564 – Utrecht 1651)
• Hendrick DE CLERCK (Bruxelles vers 1560 – Bruxelles 1630)
• Daniel RABEL (Paris 1578 – Paris 1637)
• Luciano BORZONE (Gênes 1590 – Gênes 1645)
• Crispijn DE PASSE II (Cologne vers 1593 – Amsterdam 1670)
• Hermann WEYER (Cobourg 1596 – Cobourg vers 1621)
• Grégoire HURET (Lyon 1606 – Paris 1670)
• Cornelis SAFTLEVEN (Gorinchem 1607 – Rotterdam 1681)
• Charles LE BRUN (Paris 1619 – Paris 1690)
• Nicolas de PLATTEMONTAGNE (Paris 1631 – Paris 1706)
• Raymond LAFAGE (Lisle-sur-Tarn 1656 – Lyon 1684)
• Cornelis DUSART (Haarlem 1660 – Haarlem 1704)
• Claude GILLOT (Langres 1673 – Paris 1722)
• François LEMOYNE (Paris 1688 – Paris 1737)
• Nicolas LANCRET (Paris 1690 – Paris 1743)
• Joseph-Ignace-François PARROCEL (Avignon 1704 – Paris 1781)
• Jean-Baptiste-Marie PIERRE (Paris 1714 – Paris 1789)
• Gabriel de SAINT-AUBIN (Paris 1724 – Paris 1780)
• Elisabeth VIGEE LE BRUN (Paris 1755 – Paris 1842)
• François-Marius GRANET (Aix-en-Provence 1775 – Aix-en-Provence 1849)
• Jean-Lubin VAUZELLE (Angerville 1776 – Paris 1839)
• Jean-Auguste-Dominique INGRES (Montauban 1780 – Paris 1867)
• Philibert d’Amiens de RANCHICOURT (Béthune 1781 – Ranchicourt 1825)
• Merry-Joseph BLONDEL (Paris 1781 – Paris 1853)
• Théodore GERICAULT (Rouen 1791 – Paris 1824)
• Antoine-Louis BARYE (Paris 1795 – Paris 1875)
• Eugène DELACROIX (Charenton-St-Maurice 1798 – Paris 1863)
• Alfred DE DREUX (Paris 1810 – Paris 1860)
• Théodore ROUSSEAU (Paris 1812 – Barbizon 1867)
• Olivier BRO DE COMERES (Paris 1813 – Paris 1874)
• Jean-François MILLET (Gréville-Hague 1814 – Barbizon 1875)
• François-Auguste RAVIER (Lyon 1814 – Morestel 1895)
• Gustave COURBET (Ornans 1819 – La Tour-de-Peilz 1877)
• Félix-Joseph BARRIAS (Paris 1822 – Paris 1907)
• Pierre PUVIS DE CHAVANNES (Lyon 1824 – Paris 1898)
• Alexis-Joseph MAZEROLLE (Paris 1826 – Paris 1899)
• Gustave DORE (Strasbourg 1832 – Paris 1883)
• Albert LEBOURG (Montfort-sur-Risle 1849 – Rouen 1928)
• John SERGEANT (Londres 1937 – Bronllys 2010)

Focus on the covert artwork

Jean-Auguste-Dominique INGRES
(Montauban 1780 – Paris 1867)
Etude de licteur

Black pencil, red chalk
47×41 cm
Annotated top right « grand clair ».

Study for the figure of a lictor in the lower right-hand corner of the painting Le Martyre de Saint Symphorien, painted in 1834 and kept in the cathedral of Saint-Lazare in Autun.

Provenance

Pierre-Auguste Pichon (1805-1900), a pupil of Ingres, then through family descent

Along with L’Age d’or and L’Apothéose d’Homer, the Martyre de Saint Symphorien is one of the compositions by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres with the most preparatory drawings.

While several international institutions hold studies for the composition, the Musée Ingres in Montauban alone holds over two hundred. Commissioned in 1824 by the Bishop of Autun for Saint-Lazare Cathedral, just after the artist’s success with his Vow of Louis XIII, the final painting was completed almost ten years later in 1834.

Between the first studies that led to the modello of 1827 and the final painting, the hundreds of studies that have survived make it possible to follow the evolution of the figures in the composition.

Our unpublished study prepares the figure of the lictor on the right of the composition and constitutes a kind of essential pivot, since it shows Ingres moving from the first solution envisaged to the one finally chosen.

The research into the position of the lictor’s right arm shows the three positions studied by the artist in his quest for perfection. The outstretched arm sketched in red chalk in our drawing corresponds to the position chosen in the 1827 modello in the former Varcollier collection, and in the painted study in the Fogg Art Museum in Boston, an intermediary between the modello and the final composition.

Two drawings in the Musée Ingres in Montauban show the artist’s research into the position of the right arm. While the first (Inv. 867.1844) isolates the figure of the lictor by maintaining the horizontal position of the right arm, the second sketches the arm stretched downwards for the first time and proposes a variant with the arm bent over the stomach (Inv. 867.1872 verso).

By isolating the definitive solution, our drawing comes at the end of the artist’s creative process. The elegance of the layout and the power it exudes bear witness to the artist’s admiration for the draughtsmen of the Italian Renaissance, and in particular Raphael.