Jean Louis Andre Theodore Gericault

Double-sided Horse Studies by Théodore Géricault

1820-1821

This study presents a typical Roman countryside landscape: an ancient mausoleum in front of which a cart is passing by followed by two peasants. If the technique (a pen drawing on graphite lines, completed with a wash of brown and grey inks) and the signature inevitably evoke the art of Lorrain, we find on the verso of this drawing additional evidences that lead us to consider this unpublished drawing as a work by the master. The motif of the mausoleum has been taken up in pen on the verso in a technique that can be found in several other drawings by Lorrain. There is also a study of three characters, which can be considered as preparatory to Lorrain’s painting entitled The Port of Ostia with the Embarkation of Saint Paula, leading us to claim this attribution with a dating of around 1639. 1. Claude Lorrain or the perfection of classical landscape in Rome in the 17th century Claude Gellée was born in 1600 in Chamagne in Lorraine. Orphaned at the age of twelve, he spent a year with his brother in Freiburg, where the latter was a woodcarver. Claude Gellée then probably arrived in Rome in 1613, where he joined the workshop of Agostino Tassi (1580 - 1644) in 1617. Between 1619 and 1620 he studied for two years in Naples in the workshop of Goffredi Wals (who was himself a former pupil of Tassi). In 1625 he returned to Lorraine for two years where he worked alongside Claude Deruet. He then returned to Rome, a city he never left for the rest of his life (except for short trips to the surrounding countryside). From 1627 to 1650 he lived in Via Margutta. From 1635 onwards he became a renowned painter and commissions started to pour in. Considered during his lifetime as the most accomplished of the classical landscape painters, his reputation never faded. Between 1629 and 1635 Le Lorrain often went to the Roman countryside to draw with his friend Joachim von Sandrart (1606 - 1686). He became a member of the Academy of Saint Luke in 1633, while being closely acquainted with the Bentvueghels, this guild which brought together the young Nordic painters active in Rome. In 1643 he joined the Congregation of the Virtuosi. In 1650 he moved to Via Paolina where he lived until his death. Little is known of his intimate life. He seems to have had a daughter, Agnes, from an ancillary love affair. In 1657/ 1658 she moved in with him. Stricken with gout in 1663, he died in 1682. 2. Description of the drawing; the technique of nature studies Two peasants are walking behind a horse-drawn cart on a road that winds through ancient tombs. While a rectangular tomb with a columned facade can be seen in the distance, the cart passes an important ancient building. It has a circular shape and its partially ruined façade is decorated with columns. The start of a second floor can...

Arriving in Rome in June 1735 as a resident at the Royal Academy, Pierre was unable to attend the Winter Carnival festivities of 1735, which he nevertheless immortalised in an engrav...

In this double-sided red chalk study, Simone Cantarini offers us a double reflection on the theme of the Judgment of Solomon. This sheet reveals his precise style and his sense of de...

An official artist of the Nazi regime, trained in Montparnasse in the 1930s, Arno Breker continued to sculpt after the fall of the Third Reich, producing large-scale public commissions in Germany and portraits of prominent figures. The two small bronzes presented here, dated around 1978, are part of a long tradition of prancing horses dating back to antiquity. The asymmetrical treatment of the two front legs and the inclination of the head make these two copies of the same artwork a highly decorative pair. 1. Arno Breker, a prolific sculptor, from the Bohemia of Montparnasse to the commissions from the Third Reich ... and from the Federal Republic of Germany The son of a stone carver, Arno Breker studied fine art and anatomy in his native Elberfeld. At the age of 20, he entered the Düsseldorf Academy of Art. He moved to Paris in 1926, where he continued his training in the studio of Maillol, who dubbed him "the German Michelangelo of the twentieth century". He shared a studio with Alexandre Calder and frequented Jean Cocteau, Foujita, Brancusi, Pablo Picasso and other artists of the bohemian Paris of the time. It was also in Paris in 1933 that he met Demetra Messala, the daughter of a Greek diplomat who posed for Maillol and Picasso, whom he married in 1937. Having won the Prussian Prix de Rome in 1932, he left Paris to stay at the Villa Massimo, the German Academy in Rome. Returning to Germany in 1934, his style evolved towards a more marked imitation of ancient sculpture. He created two monumental statues for Berlin's Olympic Stadium, before being appointed professor at the Berlin College of Fine Arts in 1937. He came to the attention of the Reich Propaganda Ministry, which awarded him several commissions and provided him with three large studios in which Breker produced many monumental sculptures to the glory of the regime. On June 23, 1940, Breker accompanied Adolf Hitler during a visit to Paris. During the Occupation, his political connections enabled him to intervene on behalf of many artists pursued by the Nazis: for example, he protected Pablo Picasso (then a Communist) from Kommandantur officers. Most of Arno Breker's work was destroyed in Berlin at the end of the war in 1945 by bombing and intentional destruction perpetrated by soldiers of the victorious powers. After the fall of the Nazi regime, however, Arno Breker was never prosecuted. He opened a new studio in Düsseldorf, where he sculpted until his death in 1991. He then carried out several public commissions in Germany (Bayreuth, Wuppertal), as well as portraits of numerous personalities, including King Mohammed V of Morocco, Léopold Sedar Senghor (commissioned by the Académie Française in 1978) and the two chancellors of the Federal Republic of Germany, Konrad Adenauer and Ludwig Erhard. The Arno Breker Museum in Nörvenich is now exhibiting some of his artworks. 2. Related artworks: from the Wild Horses of the Quirinal to the Horses of Marly The prancing horse is a major iconographic theme, found in a series of sculptures from Antiquity, the Renaissance and the Classical Age. Various photos from Arno Breker's studio in Berlin confirm the predominant place of equine representations in his work (alongside male nude statues), and confirm that this reduced version created in 1978 is part of the artist's preferred repertoire. Prancing horses are generally associated with a male figure in a group that, through a reference drawn from Antiquity, symbolizes man's domination over nature. In this respect, it is very interesting to compare our small bronzes with the horse forming part of a large sculpture by Arno Breker (made in 1936 and probably destroyed in 1945) depicting Alexander taming Bucephalus. This statue is itself directly inspired by one of the best-known works of 18th-century French sculpture...

French School 19th Century, Studies of horses, two drawings in the same frame 7 x 11 cm (oval) and 7 x 9.8 cm pencil on paper Condition : The oval one on the left with foxings (see...

Horse is a drawing realized by Joseph Colin in the Mid-20th Century. Pencil on ivory-colored paper Good conditions with slight foxing. The artwork is realized through deft express...

Henri-Louis Dupray (1841-1909) Studies of military horsemen, two signed drawings Pencil on paper The first one figuring a partial study of two horsemen : 10.8 x 16.5 cm, bears a mo...

Horses is a drawing realized by Paul Emile Colin in the Early 20th Century. Carbon Pencil on ivory-colored paper Stamped on the lower. Good conditions with slight foxing. The art...