Eugène DELACROIX - Lot 49

Eugène DELACROIX (Charenton-Saint-Maurice 1798 - Paris 1863) Studies of reclining lions Original canvas and stretcher. On the back, palette tests on the canvas and stretcher. 61 x 50 cm Certificate from Pierre Dieterle, April 1973 (as Eugène Delacroix); letter from Lee Johnson, April 1966. On the stretcher, Haro mark on rue de Colombier and wax seal from Delacroix's studio sale. Provenance: Eugène Delacroix studio sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, February 17-19, 1864, lot 213, to Biedermann for 1180 frs?; M. J. Nicolas, August 1864 (according to L. Johnson, vol. I, p. 34, no. 56); Detrimont (according to L. Johnson, vol. I, p. 34, no. 56)?; Charles Soultzener (1811-1880) ; (Detrimont exchanged the painting for a painting by Diaz and 1000 frs, March 11, 1873) ; Soultzener owned several paintings by Delacroix, but also by Jean-François Millet and painters of the Barbizon School? ; by descent in the Soultzener family, Paris ; his great-granddaughter, Mme M. de Boulancy, Paris. Exhibition: Boulevard des Italiens, Paris 1864, no. 92 (Têtes de lionnes. Etude -sic-), on loan from M. J. Nicolas. Bibliography: Adolphe Moreau, E. Delacroix et son œuvre, Paris, Librairie des bibliophiles, 1873, no. 213, p. 322?; Alfred Robaut, L'œuvre complet d'Eugène Delacroix, Paris, Charavay Frères, 1885, p. 74, no. 264; André Joubin, Journal de Eugène Delacroix, Paris, Plon, 1950 edition, vol. I, p. 252; vol. II, p. 374 (speaks of this work, which he lends to Lehmann)?; Luigina Rossi Bortolatto, L'opera pittorica completa di Delacroix, Milan, Rizzoli, 1972, p. 97, no. 178 (not reproduced); Pierre Georgel, Luigina Rossi Bortolattao, Tout l'œuvre peint de Delacroix, Paris, Flammarion, 1975, p. 97, no. 178 (not reproduced); Lee Johnson, The Paintings of Eugene Delacroix: A Critical Catalogue, 1816-1831, Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1981, vol. I, p. 34, no. 56; vol. II, pl. 48. "You are my superb and generous lion", declares Doña Sol to Hernani in Victor Hugo's 1830 play. The king of animals alone embodies the essence of Romanticism, with his ardor and savage strength. A year earlier, on June 19, 1829, Delacroix wrote "The lion is dead, galloping, the time it takes to activate us. I await you there", to his friend the sculptor Barye, inviting him to come and paint the lion that had just breathed its last. The lion had been donated to the Museum by Admiral Henri-Daniel Gaulthier, Comte de Rigny. Sharing the same fascination for these ferocious beasts, the two artists spent their days in the Jardin des Plantes of the Paris Museum of Natural History, observing their movements and capturing their postures. They draw the felines alive by day and analyze their anatomy at night, in front of their remains, by candlelight. In this way, they followed in the footsteps of Stubbs and Géricault. They attended dissections in the free zoology class (see Thierry Laugée, "La ménagerie d'Eugène Delacroix. Études d'un jeune peintre rugissant", Bulletin de la Société des amis du musée Eugène Delacroix, Bulletin n°?11, 2013-2014, p. 28-51). Over the course of his career, Eugène Delacroix produced numerous studies of fauves, either for their own sake or for inclusion in a scene with figures. In 1829, he considered a composition on this theme for the Salon, hesitating whether to paint lions or tigers at rest, in contrast to the academic subjects of fighting and hunting. He finally opted for the latter, and exhibited a Young Tiger Playing with its Mother (Musée du Louvre). Our canvas is part of the documentary material accumulated for this project, and thus evokes the famous watercolor, with gouache highlights, in the Louvre, Roaring Lion's Head (circa 1833-1835), as well as several study sheets featuring several lions and lionesses in various poses (Art Institute of Chicago), as on our canvas. From the margins of a lithograph of his Mephistopheles (1828), surrounded by sketches of felines quickly removed, to the end of his life, Delacroix would return again and again to these themes. Hitherto motionless and inoffensive, they were shown in action from mid-century onwards, from Lioness Watching Her Prey (also called Le Puma (1852-1854, Musée du Louvre) soon followed by a series of canvases?: Le Lion dévorant un lapin (1853, Musée du Louvre), Le Lion dévorant le sanglier (idem) and Le Lion et caïman (1855, idem), or whether he incorporated them into more complex history paintings such as Daniel dans la fosse aux lions (1849-1850, Montpellier, Musée Fabre) and the various versions of La Chasse aux lions (1854 to 1861, fragment in Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-arts, Stockholm Nationalmuseum, Chicago, Art Institute, Boston, Museum of fine Arts). The young Delacroix took as his model Rubens, whose lion-drawn chariot he had studied and copied in L'Arri