Gustave Moreau (1826 - 1898)
Description
Falcon hunting,
painting on panel signed lower right,
32.5 x 24 cm.
On June 24, 2017 was presented at auction a painting of Gustave Moreau. Sold 18 800 euros, this one revealed the vein again romantic of the artist.
A student of Edouard Picot and stylistically close to Théodore Chasseriau, Gustave Moreau began to gain fame around 1854-55: his large-format work on a mythological subject commissioned by the State was exhibited at the Universal Exhibition, a rare privilege for such a young artist.
Painted on a non-floored wooden panel (one board), signed lower right and probably dated from the year “54”, our painting can be linked to d'other small formats on woodrepresenting various episodes of the falcon huntOne of them with a man walking in the foreground is located in the Hiroshi Matsuo collection in Japan (27 x 19.5 cm, dated 1852); another with mounted hunters was in the sale in Paris, Tajan study, of March 30, 2011, lot 127 (27 x 21.5 cm, dated 1853).
Here, in the background, the character waves a decoy with one hand and holds the still hooded falcon on his other wrist, while in the foreground, the heron flees.
In his correspondence with Eugène Fromentin, Gustave Moreau wrote in April 1856: “Concerning our provincial exhibitions, nothing has yet come back from our shipments. I sold two falconer sketches in Bordeaux for 200 F; it is a nice price, it is encouraging, Mr. Dauzats told me; I would like to see it there. However, to tell the truth, I felt great joy in learning that something was being bought from me”. Indeed, the Bordeaux Arts Society acquired two panels and awarded them randomly to two of its members.
Bibliography: Pierre-Louis Matthieu, Gustave Moreau, his life, his work. Catalogue raisonné of the completed work, Paris, 1998, p.276, n°19 and 20.
File written by the Cabinet of Eric Turquin, expert in old paintings in Paris.