Photo: Alexandre Lafore
13/6/24 – Acquisition – Rueil-Malmaison, Musée des châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau – Sometimes disappointed, the hopes of La Tribune de l’Art often come to a happy ending, and this is how the dispersal of an unpublished series of works by Girodet that had never left the Becquerel family ended up enriching French public collections. In addition to the two volumes of drawings that were pre-empted when auctioneer Rémy Le Fur exercised the right to combine them to facilitate their entry into the Musée du Louvre (news item to follow), it was with a splendid independent sheet that the head of acquisitions at the Louvre launched a welcome salvo of preemptions! We had already mentioned in advance of the sale (see news item of 29/5/24) this superb study, which was admired by all during the exhibition at the Hôtel Drouot (ill. 1) and which had already been shown at the Louvre a few years ago on the occasion of the major Girodet retrospective (see article): it was sold for the very reasonable sum of €23,000 hammer price [[Or €29,210 including fees. It was immediately preempted by Michaël Chkroun, an emissary of the Louvre acting on behalf of the Château de Malmaison (whose former director Bernard Chevallier has just died – see today’s news item). As Sylvain Bellenger explained at the time in the indispensable and imposing catalogue accompanying this exhibition, this drawing (ill. 2) should be seen as a first step towards his large painting commissioned by Percier and Fontaine in 1801 for the grand salon of the Château de Malmaison, where it is once again enthroned in majesty since its purchase in Switzerland in 1931.
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- 2. Anne-Louis Girodet (1767-1824)
Ossian’s Paradise Welcomes a Hero
Black pencil, Indian ink and sepia wash, gouache highlights – 23.1 x 30.8 cm
Rueil-Malmaison, Musée des châteaux de Malmaison et Bois-Préau
Photo:…
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