Gustave Moreau (1826 - 1898)
Description
Falcon hunting,
painting on panel signed lower right,
32.5 x 24 cm.
On June 24, 2017 was presented at auction a painting of Gustave Moreau. Sold 18 800 euros, this one revealed the vein again romantic of the artist.
A pupil of Edouard Picot and stylistically close to Théodore Chasseriau, Gustave Moreau began to become famous around 1854-55: his large format with a mythological subject commissioned by the State was exhibited at the Universal Exhibition, a rare privilege for an artist so young.
Painted on a non-parqueted wooden panel (a board), signed lower right and probably dated the year "54", our painting can be related to d'' other small formats on woodrepresenting various episodes of the falcon hunt. One of them with a man walking in the foreground is located in the Hiroshi Matsuo collection in Japan (27 x 19.5 cm, dated 1852); another with the hunters on horseback was on sale in Paris Tajan study, March 30, 2011, lot 127 (27 x 21.5 cm, dated 1853).
Here, in the background, with one hand, the character waves a decoy and holds the falcon still hooded on his other wrist, while in the foreground, the heron runs away.
In his correspondence with Eugène Fromentin, Gustave Moreau wrote in April 1856: “Regarding our provincial exhibitions, nothing has yet returned from our mailings. I sold in Bordeaux for 200 F two sketches of a falconer; it is a nice price, it is encouraging, M. Dauzats told me; I would like to see him there. However, to tell the truth, I felt great joy when I heard that I was bought something ”. Indeed, the society of the Arts of Bordeaux acquired two panels and allotted them by lot to two of its members.
Bibliography: Pierre-Louis Matthieu, Gustave Moreau, his life, his work. Catalog raisonné of the finished work, Paris, 1998, p.276, n ° 19 and 20.
Sheet written by the Cabinet of Eric Turquin, expert in old paintings in Paris.