Yves Saint Laurent Pierre Bergé - Christie's

106
Jacques-Louis David
Portrait of a man in profile is reproduced in most works devoted to Jacques-
Louis David and has been exhibited on numerous occasions. Without a doubt,
this celebrity status – the term ‘Davidian icon’ springs to mind – is due as
much to its obvious pictorial qualities as to its traditional identification as the
only known self-portrait drawn by the artist and its remarkable provenance:
this is the only drawing by David to have been included in the Goncourt
brothers’ collection.
In May 1795, David, a member of the Comité de Salut Public, was accused by
anti-Jacobin forces, and convicted by the Convention. On 28 May he was
arrested, and on the following day imprisoned in the Four-Nations jail. Here,
he found himself in the company of his peers, Jacobin deputies who like him
were awaiting judgement, and he began to draw their portraits. This famous
series of nine roundel portraits, all of the same size, format and technique,
most of which are today in public collections, has been incisively described by
Louis-Antoine Prat, co-author of the catalogue raisonné of David’s drawings,
as ‘a chain of friendship and resistance against injustice and failed politics…
what is most striking is their steady gaze, as well as their unbending dignity
of bearing’.
The present portrait has often been identified as the Goncourt medallion for
having been in the collection of Edmond and Jules de Goncourt. A rare photograph
shows the framed portrait prominently displayed in the drawing-room of
their residence in Auteuil. It was the Goncourts who first identified the sitter as
Jacques-Louis David himself, but most scholars now believe that the drawing
is not a self-portrait, mainly because one cannot see the wen, clearly visible
on David’s left cheek in his other self-portraits. Moreover, it has been argued
that it would have been difficult for David to get hold of three mirrors while
imprisoned, this being the only possible system that would have allowed
him to draw himself in profile. Despite all of these remarks, the ambiguity of its
identification still remains and enhances the mystery of this work.
JACQUES-LOUIS DAVID (1748–1825)
Portrait of a man in profile, pencil, pen and black ink, black and grey wash,
heightened with white, brown ink framing lines, 7 in. (178 mm.) diam. Estimate: v400,000–600,000