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Lot Essay
The present drawing is a study of the two figures in Paris et Hlne, commissioned by the Duc d'Artois around 1785 and now in the Louvre. Paris et Hlne was presented at the Salon of 1789, the year during which David painted a replica of the same composition, now in the Muse des Arts Dcoratifs, Paris, for the Princess Isabelle Lubomirska.
The drawing was executed on the verso of page 23 of the sixth album one in a series of twelve which David assembled, around 1785, in order to preserve the large group of sketches and tracing papers he had made after the antique during his Roman years. The fact that the present drawing was sketched on the verso of one of the sheets of the album shows that the artist continued to use these albums even after his return from Italy.
Paris et Hlne is now generally regarded as a compilation of classical references, clearly recognizable in the poses of the two protagonists and in the decor of the scene. Revealingly, David sought inspiration from a Greek vase, recorded as in Sir William Hamilton's collection by H. d'Harcanville, Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman antiquities from the Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton, 1767, pl. 24. David had made a tracing of it glued onto the previous page of the album. David slightly alters the poses of both Paris and Helen: Paris holds a lyre rather than a staff while Helen, looking away, is leaning melancholically on a column. The two figures are shown closer to each other with Helen resting her hand on Paris' shoulder: it lends to the hieratic poses of the Greek originals a delicacy of feeling characteristic of the final composition.
David would later reverse the positions of Helen and Paris, removing the column and showing Helen reclining directly on Paris' shoulder, emphasizing their attraction for each other. These changes appear in more finished drawings, in a private collection and at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Paris, Grand Palais, David, 1989, no. 82-3, illustrated).
The present drawing is from an early stage in the development of the composition, executed after a sheet in Stockholm, also drawn on a white page of another of his Roman albums (no. 3). There, Helen is shown seated beside a bed imploring Paris who stands, his head turned away, by her side: the composition is faithful to Homer's verses, showing Helen seated, but the image is conventional, and David decided to depart from it in the present sheet.
David took the crucial decision to show Paris seated with Helen standing, borrowing her pose from the figure of Paris in a famous antique relief in the Borghese Collection, which he had sketched years earlier in Rome, C. Bailey, Les Amours des Dieux, exh. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 1992, p. 423, fig. 5. Both the figures of Helen and Paris were therefore derived from poses of Paris after the antique. The present drawing marks the moment, at which David chose to infuse within every detail of his composition, subtle references to the antique. These were details which connoisseurs would have understood. David, a frequent visitor to Princess Lubormirska's salon, knew that she had viewed Sir William Hamilton's collection on many occasions and that her son-in-law, Count Potocki, was a keen archeologist. The first version of the picture had been commissioned by the duc d'Artois, brother to King Louis XVI, whose intimate friend, the Comte de Vaudreuil, had attended the famous greek supper organized in his honour by Elizabeth Vige-Le Brun. The picture responded to the craze of antiquarianism which prevailed in the French aristocratic circles before the revolution.
The drawing was executed on the verso of page 23 of the sixth album one in a series of twelve which David assembled, around 1785, in order to preserve the large group of sketches and tracing papers he had made after the antique during his Roman years. The fact that the present drawing was sketched on the verso of one of the sheets of the album shows that the artist continued to use these albums even after his return from Italy.
Paris et Hlne is now generally regarded as a compilation of classical references, clearly recognizable in the poses of the two protagonists and in the decor of the scene. Revealingly, David sought inspiration from a Greek vase, recorded as in Sir William Hamilton's collection by H. d'Harcanville, Collection of Etruscan, Greek and Roman antiquities from the Antiquities from the Cabinet of the Hon. W. Hamilton, 1767, pl. 24. David had made a tracing of it glued onto the previous page of the album. David slightly alters the poses of both Paris and Helen: Paris holds a lyre rather than a staff while Helen, looking away, is leaning melancholically on a column. The two figures are shown closer to each other with Helen resting her hand on Paris' shoulder: it lends to the hieratic poses of the Greek originals a delicacy of feeling characteristic of the final composition.
David would later reverse the positions of Helen and Paris, removing the column and showing Helen reclining directly on Paris' shoulder, emphasizing their attraction for each other. These changes appear in more finished drawings, in a private collection and at the J. Paul Getty Museum (Paris, Grand Palais, David, 1989, no. 82-3, illustrated).
The present drawing is from an early stage in the development of the composition, executed after a sheet in Stockholm, also drawn on a white page of another of his Roman albums (no. 3). There, Helen is shown seated beside a bed imploring Paris who stands, his head turned away, by her side: the composition is faithful to Homer's verses, showing Helen seated, but the image is conventional, and David decided to depart from it in the present sheet.
David took the crucial decision to show Paris seated with Helen standing, borrowing her pose from the figure of Paris in a famous antique relief in the Borghese Collection, which he had sketched years earlier in Rome, C. Bailey, Les Amours des Dieux, exh. cat., Paris, Grand Palais, 1992, p. 423, fig. 5. Both the figures of Helen and Paris were therefore derived from poses of Paris after the antique. The present drawing marks the moment, at which David chose to infuse within every detail of his composition, subtle references to the antique. These were details which connoisseurs would have understood. David, a frequent visitor to Princess Lubormirska's salon, knew that she had viewed Sir William Hamilton's collection on many occasions and that her son-in-law, Count Potocki, was a keen archeologist. The first version of the picture had been commissioned by the duc d'Artois, brother to King Louis XVI, whose intimate friend, the Comte de Vaudreuil, had attended the famous greek supper organized in his honour by Elizabeth Vige-Le Brun. The picture responded to the craze of antiquarianism which prevailed in the French aristocratic circles before the revolution.