Jean-Baptiste MALLET (Grasse, 1759 - Paris, 1835) The... Lot 48

Jean-Baptiste MALLET (Grasse, 1759 - Paris, 1835) The Bridal Toilet, 1832 Canvas Signed and dated lower right: "Mallet / 1832 32 x 24,5 cm Provenance: - Townsend O'Connolly Collection. - Sale Frédéric Mallet, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, room n° 6, 9-10 February 1938, n° 154, reproduced pl. VII. - Sale, Me Bondu, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, room n° 9, 21 December 1999, n° 6, reproduced. Bibliography: - P.G. [Paul Guth]. Jean-Baptiste Mallet : Le chroniqueur mondain de la Première République, Connaissance des Arts, n° 61, March 1957, reproduced p. 32. - J. Foucart, in Catalogue de l'exposition De David à Delacroix : la peinture française de 1774 à 1830, Paris, 1974-1975, p. 534. Painted in 1832, when Mallet had long since given up exhibiting at the Salon, our painting is in the vein of "Gothic" works. It was preceded by a pen-and-ink drawing heightened with gouache (Grasse, Musée Fragonard); the group of three women and the accessories are already in place, but the decor here is more sumptuous, with the black-and-white marble fireplace and the arcade of the room flanked by caryatids. On the rondel of the upper part of the window, we can see David playing the harp while below a woman is naked in a beautiful garden, thus making a parallel between our scene and the biblical story of David and Bathsheba. Mallet uses this narrative trick to elevate a troubadour genre scene to the level of a history painting.