Anne-Louis GIRODET-TRIOSON. L.A.S., Thursday... - Lot 41 - Daguerre

Lot 41
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Estimation :
2000 - 2500 EUR
Result with fees
Result : 2 600EUR
Anne-Louis GIRODET-TRIOSON. L.A.S., Thursday... - Lot 41 - Daguerre
Anne-Louis GIRODET-TRIOSON. L.A.S., Thursday evening January 23 [1819 ?], to Madame de REISET; 3 pages in-8, address. Very interesting letter about the preparation of the portrait of Colette de Reiset. "If you want a velvet dress, I prefer it black because it pleases us both more and its effect must be and that its effect must be to give to the complexions more effect and freshness. The art always under nature, especially when it is you who are the model, needs to neglect none of its resources and to make a judicious choice. Green or red will be very well suited to the velvet of the table [...] loaded with your favorite books. We will not forget the letter or the roses. Everything that is an emblem of feeling and grace must naturally find its place after your portrait and become its indispensable accessory. It will be up to the painter's art to arrange all these things in a way that reconciles them with the laws of painting. We can even add a music roll that will give a glimpse of one of these tunes that you sing with such an endearing expression for the listeners that you want to admit"...He fears however that a full-length portrait would take on proportions too gigantic to place in his apartments, unlike a knee-length portrait, and he lists the disadvantages of such a format: is it absolutely necessary? He is moreover overloaded with work and business, and he will be able He is also overloaded with work and business, and he will be able to complete a knee-length portrait more quickly, "where all the accessories you have indicated to me would be found. Also, a full-length portrait would necessarily occupy me more than twice the time that the other one would require"... Moreover, beset by creditors, he would like to be paid as soon as possible; but whatever his choice, let her persist in desiring a full-length portrait, or if she accepts the one on the knees or half-body, "I am at your orders, it will not change anything to the preliminary sketch which I will always need [...] and I will wait for you on Monday at one o'clock", if the dress is ready; she will also have to bring the "schall" and the pelisse to choose... "whatever way I have the advantage of painting you, never a more agreeable portrait will have occupied my brushes"... Attached is the autograph draft of Colette Reiset's reply (signed "Colette R"; 4 pages in-8): "It is not promptly Sir that I wish to have my portrait - on the contrary, I beg you to put it aside on the contrary, I beg you to put it aside until works more worthy of occupying your brushes have yet obtained I understand perfectly well that the size of a full-length portrait must become more voluminous, but my salons in Rouen have the necessary size so that this painting does not lose its effect. I am therefore invincibly attached to it. I understand that the price (I say the price which can never mean with you the value) is also different from that which you would put to a portrait only up to the knees: I always thought that it would go to 3 thousand francs in this time; if however I was mistaken please tell me frankly and without reticence. When one is like you at the height of his profession and that one reaches so completely the glory and the honor whose success crowns the exercise of it one can speak about the small things of this world without falling nor losing anything of its nobility "... She returns on the price of the full-length portrait, wishing that it is appropriate to her too, she explains that the patience is not the only thing that is important to her. explains that patience is not her strong point, and thanks the painter "not to disdain all these small details", because she holds these small objects: "I forgot that the talent and the genius ennobles and embellishes all"... [There is a drawing for the project of a full-length portrait of Mme de Reiset, seated near a table (Girodet exhibition, Louvre 2005, n° 97). The portrait was eventually made into a bust; Mme de Reiset wears a black velvet dress and a pelisse].
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