Joseph-Marie VIEN (Montpellier 1716-1809 Paris) - Lot 103

Joseph-Marie VIEN (Montpellier 1716-1809 Paris) La toilette d'une jeune mariée dans le costume antique circa 1776-1777. Oil on paper, mounted on canvas. 29.5 x 39.5 cm (enlarged by 1 cm. on the left margin, tiny loss in the center right). Provenance : - Anonymous sale, Etude Christian Rosset, Geneva, November 28-29, 1973, lot 275, as "Vien Joseph (att. to)" (illustrated in catalog). - Collection of Dr. Paolini, Corsica. - Then, by descent, up to the present day. Bibliography : - Most likely Archives nationales, O/1/1942 , "- Vien, Directeur. 1775-1781", "Letter from Vien to d'Angiviller, September 11, 1776". - Most likely A. de Montaiglon, J. Guiffrey, "Correspondance des directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome...", t.13, p.246. n°6789. - Most likely T. Gaehtgens, J. Lugand, "Joseph-Marie Vien, peintre du roi", Arthena, 1988, n°239 - T. Gaehtgens, J. Lugand, "Joseph-Marie Vien, peintre du roi", Arthena, 1988, no. 240. Related works : - Joseph-Marie Vien, La toilette de la jeune mariée, 1777, oil on canvas, 100 x 135 cm. sale Sotheby's New York, February 1, 2018, lot 51, sold for $855,000. Our delicate oil-on-paper sketch is almost certainly the preparatory sketch, long considered lost, for one of the artist's masterpieces "La toilette d'une jeune mariée dans le costume antique" produced in 1777 in Rome, commissioned directly by Charles Claude Flahaut de La Billarderie, comte d'Angiviller (1730-1809), fine collector and superintendent of the Bâtiments du Roi (private collection, current location unknown as of 2018). In the painter's correspondence with d'Angiviller, we find mention of a sketch in progress: "Rome, this September 11, 1776, (...) I have been busy sketching the painting you asked for, representing a Greek maiden being prepared for the nuptial bed, and have not forgotten the rosebud she is to hold in her hand to compare with another; I will leave no stone unturned so that it may please you (...)". In their 1988 catalog raisonné, Messrs. Gaehtgens and Lugand established that our sketch, which they knew only from the mediocre photograph in the 1973 sales catalog, could well be the sketch mentioned in the 1776 letter. It was also envisaged that it might be a "replica executed by the artist before the painting was sent to Paris, or better still, only a copy". Vien was accustomed to the practical realization of oils on paper in preparation for these large compositions, which are generally executed in a direct, nervous manner, with a fairly broad brush. Ours seems to testify to the artist's particular attention to detail, another example of which is his "Priam begging Achilles to return Hector's body" (c. 1783, 52 x 67 cm., cat. Gaehtgens & Lugand, no. 249, former collection of Karl Lagerfeld). The previous auction presentation of the final painting from 1777 set a world record for the artist in 2018 (see related work). Expert: Pierre-Antoine MARTENET.