AMAURY-DUVAL (Montrouge 1808 - Paris 1885) The... Lot 7

AMAURY-DUVAL (Montrouge 1808 - Paris 1885) The painter's dream (or A painter asleep next to his painting and the angels finishing his unfinished work) Oil on canvas 164.5 x 123 cm Signed, located and dated lower left Amaury-Duval Florence 1836 Bears a handwritten number 3494 on the back of the frame Amaury-Duval was one of Ingres' most famous pupils and closest followers. Like his master, Amaury-Duval excelled in the art of portraiture but also in religious compositions, as shown by The Painter's Dream painted in Florence in 1836. The painter, bewitched by the beauty of Florence and its artists, takes up a legend according to which the face of the Virgin was painted by an angel during the sleep of the painter Fra Angelico, in the Santissima Annunziata Church. In Amaury-Duval's painting, the sleeping painter takes on the features of his faithful friend and pupil Edmond Geffroy, who was a great actor of the Comédie Française and a painter to boot. The painting has remained in the family of the model until today, despite a theft, but fortunately reappeared and was returned to the owner at a sale at Drouot in 1999. Amaury Duval is very attached to this work, he thinks that the critics will not receive it and that the Salon will be more clear-sighted, but it is quite the opposite that happens. "... a painting that I started and that I could only do in Florence. It is an inspiration of Beato Angelico, I call it inspiration, it's very simple, but you people in Paris are going to call it a copy, an infamous imitation. What do you want me to do about it, I thought I had to put into a work the profit I had made from a master. So I bow my head in advance. Come what may. I hope I have done it for the Salon. Unfortunately the painting was refused at the 1837 Salon despite the glowing reviews in the press, which spoke of it thus: "... a work of great merit which recalls both the firm and correct drawing of M. Ingres and the simple and graceful manner of the masters of the Florentine School. The subject of this painting, inspired by the Italian sky, has been rendered with a gentle poetry whose harmony contrasts with those effect paintings in vogue today. I understand that those who love the effect style or, if you like, the picturesque, have no understanding of the simple and naive painting which is almost always the hallmark of true talent. They are looking for calculation and artifice, but how can they fail to see that calculation in art is destructive of enthusiasm and that without enthusiasm there is no poetry or painting possible. So today, when we know neither how to characterize nor reproduce on the human figure the mysteries of the soul, what do we get? Subjects where everything is arranged in advance to dazzle and strike the eyes as at a theatrical performance? Ornaments, accessories, adjustments copied with the miserable patience of a lapidary worker, attitudes whose effect has always been worked on. With this one can catch money but never glory... Also that M.Duval pursues his road with firmness, this artist is one of those who have the most future today. Let him remain faithful to the noble traditions he has drawn from the study of the great masters and he will have contributed among us to bring art back to its poetic destination. Provenance: Edmond Geffroy Collection Sale Drouot Paris, Compagnie des commissaires priseurs de Paris, 19 November 1999, n°165 of the catalogue. Withdrawn from the sale and returned to the owner by court order. Private collection Bibliography: L'Artiste, 1837, t.XIII, p.164 Exhibition catalogue, Calais, 1993, volume II Amaury-Duval (1808-1885), L'homme et l'œuvre, thesis defended by Véronique Noël-Bouton-Rollet, under the direction of Professor Bruno Foucart, 2005-2006, N°119 p. 254 and reproduced on p. 255.