Paintings Drawings Sculptures 2016 - Jean Luc Baroni

Théodore Géricault
Rouen 1791 - 1824 Paris
12
Portrait of Eugène Delacroix: a Young Man with an Open Collar
Oil on canvas.
54 x 45 cm (21 ½ x 17 ¾ in).
Provenance: Collection of Eugène Delacroix and
given by him to Mme. Julie Colin, according to the
catalogue of the Charpentier gallery, 1938 (see below);
given to the family of the comte de Mandat-Grancey
of Dijon; Edouard Napoléon César Edmond Mortier,
5 th Duc de Trévise (1883-1946), his sale, Paris, Galerie
Jean Charpentier, 19 May 1938, lot 32, Collection
d’Eugène Delacroix qui donna l’oeuvre à Mme Colin,
lorsqu’elle était à son service. Celle-ci en fit ensuite don
à la famille du comte de Mandat-Grancey, à Dijon 1 ;
purchased for 100,000 francs by M. Paul Baudoin
(1894-1963), thence by descent.
Literature: J. Siegfried, ‘The romantic artist as a
portrait painter’, Marsyas, VIII, 1957-1959, p.33,
note 13, as Géricault, portrait de Delacroix; Lorenz
Eitner, ‘Géricault: An album of drawings in the Art
Institute, Chicago’, Chicago 1960, p.42, under Folio
62; F.H. Lem, ‘Géricault portraitiste’, L’Arte, June-
July 1963, pp.91-92 as Géricault, Eugène Delacroix
au col ouvert; Philippe Grunchec, Tout l’œuvre
peint de Géricault, Paris 1978, no. A162 (as Portrait
de jeune home au col ouvert, dit aussi portrait
d’Eugène Delacroix Jeune); Lorenz Eitner, review of
Philippe Grunchec’s Tout l’oeuvre peint de Géricault,
Burlington Magazine, vol.122, No.924, March 1980,
p.209 (as ‘of the highest quality and certainly genuine’;
Germain Bazin, Théodore Géricault, étude critique,
documents et catalogue raisonné, vol. V, Paris 1992,
p.253-4, cat.1755 (as auteur inconnu) and p.93; to be
included in the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux de
Théodore Géricault, currently in preparation by Bruno
Chenique as Portrait d’Eugène Delacroix.
A magnificent and historically important example of
Géricault’s portraiture, this rediscovered work has
long been recorded and is illustrated in black and
white on a number of occasions in the artist’s literature
but has not been seen in the original since 1938.
Once part of the exceptional collection of Géricault’s
works belonging to the connoisseur and ‘gericaldien
passionné’ 2 , Edouard Mortier, 5 th Duc de Trévise, it
was included in his sale under the description ‘Jeune
Homme au col ouvert’ with a note detailing the earlier
provenance and an explanation of the traditional
identification of the painting as a portrait of the young
Delacroix. The picture was amongst the few works
mentioned in the introduction to the catalogue by the
critic and museum director Paul Jamot as Une ‘Tête de
jeune homme’ au profil incisif, à l’œil de feu, évoque
le futur auteur des ‘Massacres de Scio’ et des ‘Croisés’
d’une manière encore plus saisissante. Since that sale,
it has been in the same private collection in Paris.
The Duc de Trévise owned more than a dozen paintings
and numerous drawings by Géricault and is considered
to be one of the most important French collectors
of the 20th century, who greatly contributed to the
revival of Gericault’s reputation and was the founder
in 1921 of the heritage organisation La Sauvegarde
de l’art français. Despite recurrent ill health, he was
a man of exceptional energy and determination
who brought his influence to bear on cultural
institutions and patrons of the arts to save architectural
monuments whilst also leading an intense life as
painter, collector, writer and connoisseur. In 1924,
he organised the first public exhibition dedicated to
Géricault since the artist’s death 100 years earlier, held
in Paris at the Galerie Charpentier and in Rouen at
the Musée des Beaux Arts. In the years following, he
continued collecting, travelling in France and abroad
and visiting dealers and collectors constantly. It was
most probably in this period that he found the present
work, in the possession of the Mandat-Grancey family
at their château near Dijon. The archives of the Duc
de Trévise contain a quantity of material suggesting
that he planned to write a major work on the painters
of the early 19 th century but perhaps his uncertain
health and the increasing tension in European politics
undermined his plans and may have contributed to his
decision to hold a sale of a considerable part of his
collection. The cultural gazette Beaux Arts published
a series of articles announcing and then reporting on
the sale: There are no doubt serious reasons behind
his decision to separate himself from this collection…
Because … he [the Duc] will also sell his incomparable
collection of Géricault. Eleven canvases and ten
drawings which count among the masterpieces of this
artist. Eleven canvases which allow judgment of the
range of talent, at some times passionate, at others
sweetly romantic, of this too short life. The sale report
52