Lot 429: LAURENT DABOS TOULOUSE 1761 - 1835 PARIS

TROMPE L'OEIL WITH A PRINT OF TSAR ALEXANDER I OF RUSSIA, TOGETHER WITH OTHER PRINTS AND DRAWINGS BEHIND A BROKEN PAIN OF GLASS

measurements note
63.5 by 50.5 cm.; 19 3/4 by 25 in.

signed lower centre: Dabos. Peintre / Rue Neuve des Petits / champs N^o. 1286. A paris

oil on panel

NOTE

Aleksander Pavlovich Romanov, Tsar Alexander I (1777-1825) was crowned Emperor of Russia in 1801. He is often, and rightly, considered, the saviour of Russia, delivering the city of Moscow from the clutches of Napoleon. Alexander hounded them from Russian soil and to the gates of Paris, through which his army finally entered in 1814.

The present work is typical of Dabos' oeuvre and may be compared to a similar trompe l'oeil, "The treaty between Spain and France" (1801), by Dabos in the Musee Marmottan, Paris (see Witt Library Mount). He painted numerous pictures glorifying Napoleon and the feats of the Empire and it can be feasibly argued that this picture was painted in the period of good diplomatic relations between the French and the Russians from Alexander's coronation in 1801 until 1810, when the relations between France and Russia noticeably deteriorated.