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DAVID, Jacques-Louis (1748-1825)
8649 CR
8557 CR 8521

"DRAWINGS FROM 'ALBUM FACTICE' NO. 10"

Landscapes, Roman views and drawings after the antique. The drawings were removed from Album No. 10, en "album factice" David compiled chiefly from studies made in Rome. All the drawings bear the stamp "A 10" (either on their original mounts or on the reverse) indicating this source.

1775-1780

The drawings also bear the monograms J-D and E-D, affixed by David's sons Jules and Eugene for the David stelier sale of 1826 (Lugt No. 1457 and No. 839).

On October 1775, Louis David departed for Rome in the company of Bien, his master. Vien had just been appointed Director of the French Academy at Rome, and with D'Angivillier, the Directeur des Batiments, was a leading figure in the growing movement to "reform" French painting on the basis of the antique, a reform which was to receive its highest expression in the work of David.

It must be remembered that David was 27 years old in 1775, and had already received recognition among the "amateurs" - the Portrait of Mme. Jules de Polignac, for example, dates from 1774. The "Combat de Minerve contre Mars" and "La Mort de Seneque" were carried out by 1775, and among the paintings completed during the five years in Rome were "La Mort de Patrocle" and Saint Jerome". "Une Femme Allaitant son Enfant" appeared at the Salon of 1781, and already by 1781 he had painted two famous works: the equestrian portrait of Comte Potocki (actually begun in Italy) and the "Belisaire".

During his five years as pensionaire at the French Academy, David drew constantly and enthusiastically from the great collections of antiquities about him, in the papal villas, in the Capitoline Museum and in the new Vatican Museum (built by Pope Plus VI at this time, 1775-1782), and traveled to Florence, Naples, and Bologna as well. The great masters of the 17th century were an equally inspiring revelation to him, and among his sketches are momentos of works by the grand classicist Bolognese painters, Reni and Domenichino, but also Rubens (1).