JOSEPH MARIE VIEN (Montpellier, 1716 - Paris,... Lot 40

JOSEPH MARIE VIEN (Montpellier, 1716 - Paris, 1809) The reading of love letters, 1798 P en and brown ink, brown wash. Signed and dated on the right column "j.m. vien 1798". Height 21,5 Width 28,2 cm. (Small epidermal marks on the upper right, slightly insolate). Love letters reading, by Vien. Pencil and ink wash, 1798. A drawing belonging to the same "Happiness of life" set that is largely housed in the Louvre Museum. Our sheet is part of the "Happiness of life" set which is largely housed in the Louvre in an album acquired in 1965. The Musée des Beaux-Arts in Béziers has a preparatory sketch of our drawing (inv. 1978) (see : T.W. Gaehtgens and J. Lugand, Joseph Marie Vien, Arthéna, Paris, 1988, p.266, fig.255, rep.). Vien specifies in his memoirs, after the realization of two other suites "Jeux des nymphes et des amours" and "Les vicissitudes de la guerre" that "when these drawings were removed, I imagined (because I could not remain idle) to make a third suite composed of thirty-one subjects representing "The happiness of Life or the union of hymen and love".