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Lot Essay
For a discussion of the subject of this painting, see the following lot.
During his brief career, Deshayes was admired as a painter of History subjects, and was hailed by Diderot, among others, as the great hope of French art. His champions saw in his church altarpieces a heartfelt pathos and high drama which they considered lacking in a school of painting dominated by the seductive style Boucher; ironically, Deshayes became Boucher's son-in-law in 1758 when he married the artist's daughter Jeanne Elisabeth Victoire.
This theatrically dramatic, elegantly painted modello displays the rich coloring, compositional ingenuity, and striking use of lighting that made Deshayes' reputation as the greatest history painter of his generation. The painting was presumably intended as a highly finished sketch for a larger canvas, but no record of another version of the subject has been found. The subject of Belshazzar's Feast was unusual in 18th-century French art, but Deshayes might have been inspired to take it up by his first mentor and champion, the academician Collin de Vermont, who himself exhibited an oil sketch of the subject in the Salon of 1737.
During his brief career, Deshayes was admired as a painter of History subjects, and was hailed by Diderot, among others, as the great hope of French art. His champions saw in his church altarpieces a heartfelt pathos and high drama which they considered lacking in a school of painting dominated by the seductive style Boucher; ironically, Deshayes became Boucher's son-in-law in 1758 when he married the artist's daughter Jeanne Elisabeth Victoire.
This theatrically dramatic, elegantly painted modello displays the rich coloring, compositional ingenuity, and striking use of lighting that made Deshayes' reputation as the greatest history painter of his generation. The painting was presumably intended as a highly finished sketch for a larger canvas, but no record of another version of the subject has been found. The subject of Belshazzar's Feast was unusual in 18th-century French art, but Deshayes might have been inspired to take it up by his first mentor and champion, the academician Collin de Vermont, who himself exhibited an oil sketch of the subject in the Salon of 1737.