Lot 242: c - ATTRIBUTED TO JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID PARIS 1748 - 1825 BRUSSELS A SHEET OF STUDIES OF CLASSICAL

c - ATTRIBUTED TO JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID PARIS 1748 - 1825 BRUSSELS A SHEET OF STUDIES OF CLASSICAL FIGURES, GROUPS OF SOLDIERS AND HEADS IN PROFILE

each figure accompanied by an inscription in French or Greek

black chalk

PROVENANCE

David sale, Paris, 17 April 1826;
Second David Sale, Paris, 11 March 1835
CATALOGUE NOTE

David was in Rome from November 1775 to July 1780, during which time he drew extensively, largely copying classical sculptures, works which would later serve him well in his paintings. He also made some copies after old master paintings and drew some landscapes in and around Rome. These drawings were made in sketchbooks, but on his return to France he mounted them in albums, organized by subject. After David's death, the original albums were broken up into 12 different albums, and were included in the estate sale of 17 April 1826, and a subsequent sale in March 1835. David included many 'calques', or tracings, in his albums, most of them based on illustrations in P. d'Hancarville, Antiquités étrusques...tirées du cabinet de M. Hamilton..., 4 vols., Naples, 1766-67 or A. F. Gori, Gemmae antiquae ex thesauro Mediceo..., Florence, 1731-1732. Rosenberg and Prat feel that the calques are probably not by David himself, but that he nonetheless valued them and kept them, and even worked some up with grey wash (Rosenberg and Prat, op.cit., p. 402). David's sons did not put their paraphes on the calques in the albums which they recomposed after their father's death. For an extremely impressive and complete discussion of the composition and history of the albums, see Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Jacques-Louis David, Catalogue raisonné des dessins, Milan 2002, vol. I, pp. 391-407.

335 by 358mm