Lot n° 32
Estimation :
25000 - 30000
EUR
Jean-Claude NAIGEON (Dijon 1753 - 1832)
The... - Lot 32 - Ader
Jean-Claude NAIGEON (Dijon 1753 - 1832)
The Battle of Arbelles, also known as The Battle of Alexander against Darius or The Defeat of Darius, after Peter of Cortona
Canvas 90 x 188 cm
(Lifts, losses and restorations)
Provenance:
Painted in Rome in 1781 and 1782;
Collection of Dr. René Masson, Château de Gevrey-Chambertin, in 1961;
Acquired from the artist's descendants by the present owner.
Exhibition :
Une école provinciale de dessin au XVIIIe siècle : L'Académie de peinture et sculpture de Dijon, Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Palais des Etats de Bourgogne, 1961, n° 133.
Bibliography :
- P. Quarré, Deux élèves de l'Académie de peinture de Dijon, Jean-Claude Naigeon et Jean Naigeon, in Bulletin de la société de l'Histoire de l'art français, 1963, cited p.129 ;
- Catalogue of the exhibition L'Art des Collections. Bicentenaire du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, du siècle des Lumières à l'aube d'un nouveau millénaire, Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 16 June - 9 October 2000, quoted p. 66;
- C. Lamarre, S. Laveissière, Les prix de Rome des Etats de Bourgogne : Lettres à François Devosge, 1776-1792, Dijon, 2003, quoted p. 57 and p. 129.
In imitation of the Académie de Paris, which sent students to Rome to train in contact with the models of Antiquity and Renaissance Italy, the Prix de Rome des Etats de Bourgogne allowed deserving young artists to perfect their skills in Rome. In return, they sent a work of art to Dijon each year. Jean Claude Naigeon was in Rome between 1781 and 1784. In March 1782, Naigeon announced to Devosge the completion of The Battle of Arbelles, asking him to keep it until his return to France, as he had done it for himself, "to take to Paris". He sent his painting in 1784, along with The Abduction of the Sabine Women (now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Dijon), two paintings after Pierre de Cortone kept in the Capitoline Museum in Rome. In his letter to François Devosge, director of the Academy of Painting at the Palais des Etats in Dijon, he wrote on December 12, 1781: "I am working at the Capitol to do the battle of Alexander against Darius of Cortona. In the gallery, one does not take down the paintings, one must copy them in place, too bad if they are badly lit and this is what happens to me today because of the bad weather" (C. Lamarre, S. Laveissière, Les prix de Rome des Etats de Bourgogne, Dijon, 2003, pp. 53-58). In the end, he did not decide to send it to the States of Burgundy.
A few months later, the elected representatives of Burgundy asked Pierre Paul Prud'hon for a copy of the ceiling, also by Pierre de Cortone (now at the heart of the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Paris), showing the same fondness for this Baroque artist, who was the opposite of the neoclassical taste that prevailed at the time (Sylvain Laveissière : Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur. Catalog of the Grand Palais exhibition, Sept. 23, 1997-Jan. 12, 1998, p.59-61).
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