Lot n° 44
Estimation :
12000 - 15000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 25 600EUR
Paul BAUDRY (La Roche-sur-Yon 1828 - Paris... - Lot 44 - Ader
Paul BAUDRY (La Roche-sur-Yon 1828 - Paris 1886)
Allegory of Florence, Allegory of Naples
Pair of canvases, edged
The Allegory of Florence is monogrammed at the bottom left "P.B /1862" (BP bound), that of Naples is monogrammed at the bottom right P.B
110,5 x 155 cm
Provenance:
- Commissioned by the Marquis Luigi Raffaele de Ferrari (1803-1976), Duke of Galliera and Prince of Lucedio for his private residence, Paris (now Hôtel Matignon);
- Christopher Wood Collection; Christie's New York sale, October 24, 1997, lots n° 378 and n° 379.
Bibliography:
- Catalogue of the exhibition Baudry 1828-1886, La Roche-sur-Yon, Musée d'Art et d'Archéologie, January 17 - March 31, 1986, cited p. 44;
- Catalogue of the exhibition Paul Baudry, 1826-1886. Les portraits et les nus, Historial de la Vendée, October 26, 2007 - February 3, 2008, quoted p. 207, archival photographs p. 210 (1861, décor perdu);
- Catalogue of the exhibition "Devenir peintre au XIXe siècle. Baudry, Bougereau, Lenepveu", Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne
"Decoration" holds an essential place in Baudry's work; we also know him as a portraitist.
This son of a clog maker was supported from the beginning by his native town, La Roche-sur-Yon, which offered him an annual pension to train in Paris. Thus, in 1850, he obtained the first Grand Prix de Rome, being noticed for the quality of his colors.
He then followed the academic course at the Villa Medici for five years, discovering Rome, and then, with a grant from the Conseil Général de la Vendée, went to Florence with William Bouguereau in 1852 and, the following year, to Venice. During the summer of 1853, he visited Naples and Pompeii with Charles Garnier.
Upon his return to Paris, he painted his first decoration, door tops which were dismantled and replaced in the Marigny-Rothschild Hotel where they are still in place. The following year, in 1858, he painted the two overdoors for Achille Fould's hotel, now in the Condé Museum in Chantilly.
In 1861, he worked for Raffaele de Ferrari, Duke of Galliera (1803-1876). Born into a large Genoese family, this financier, close to Louis-Philippe, invested in railroads in northern Italy and on the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranean line. In 1852, he founded the Crédit immobilier with the Péreire brothers and bought the former Hôtel de Matignon, whose restoration was entrusted to Félix Duban. Paul Baudry was then asked to decorate the grand salon, which would be the setting for sumptuous receptions attended by the Orleanists. The two paintings we are presenting are from this salon. To these allegories of the cities of Florence and Naples were added those of Rome, Venice and Genoa. These cities, identifiable by the arms borne by graceful putti, are personified by classical figures with undulating lines. Florence is the city of the arts, architecture being symbolized by the plan of Santa Maria Novella. Naples, which owes its wealth to the sea, takes on the features of Parthenope. The city was indeed built where the waves rejected the body of this mermaid who, having failed to bewitch Ulysses with the sounds of her lyre, committed suicide.
After this ensemble, Paul Baudry painted in 1866 The Day Chasing the Night, his first ceiling, that of the Hôtel de la Païva on the Champs-Elysées and, from 1865 to 1874, he devoted himself to the decor that immortalized his name, that of the Grand foyer of the Paris Opera.
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