Lot Essay
Paul Delaroche was the son of an art dealer and nephew of a conservator at the Bibliotheque Nationale and later married Horace Vernet's daughter. Highly respected in his lifetime, Delaroche's studio drew many of the leading artists of the next generation as students, such as Jean-Léon Gérôme, Thomas Couture and Charles-Francois Daubigny. He studied under Baron Gros from whom he learned the accurate treatment of historical and mythological subjects. In 1822 he submitted his first entries to the Salon and earned the attention of Géricault who took him under his wing, even asking him on his deathbed to help finish two of his own 1824 Salon entries. After Delaroche's 1831 Salon entry Les Enfants d'Edouard (Musée du Louvre, Paris, he was made a member of the Institute des Beaux Arts and the following year he became a professor. During his lifetime, his paintings sold for fantastic sums; one painting that sold for 10,000 francs in 1835 (Assassinat du Duc de Guise) was resold in 1852 for 52,500 francs just four years before Delaroche's death.
This painting was produced in 1843 during Delaroche's year-long sojourn in Italy. It was a study for another of the same subject in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besancon, completed by the artist the following year. The Besancon version has the addition of a lyre behind the fountain and it has been suggested that the woman may be Sappho.
The allegorical figure and etheral mood, while seemingly unusual for Delaroche, foreshadow the neoclassical and romantic characteristics of the work of his own students such as Gérôme, and of the next generation of French Salon artists, such as Bouguereau and Cabanel.
Mills began collecting in the 1890s, and the family's collection reflected current fashionable taste at the turn of the century in America. At the time it was sold in 1938 at their house sale at 4 East 69th Street, New York, this painting was hanging alongside Gérôme's oil sketch Diogenes and His Lamp.
This painting was produced in 1843 during Delaroche's year-long sojourn in Italy. It was a study for another of the same subject in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besancon, completed by the artist the following year. The Besancon version has the addition of a lyre behind the fountain and it has been suggested that the woman may be Sappho.
The allegorical figure and etheral mood, while seemingly unusual for Delaroche, foreshadow the neoclassical and romantic characteristics of the work of his own students such as Gérôme, and of the next generation of French Salon artists, such as Bouguereau and Cabanel.
Mills began collecting in the 1890s, and the family's collection reflected current fashionable taste at the turn of the century in America. At the time it was sold in 1938 at their house sale at 4 East 69th Street, New York, this painting was hanging alongside Gérôme's oil sketch Diogenes and His Lamp.