Aimé Millet (Paris 1819-1891)

The Adoration of the Shepherds (after Jusepe de Ribera)

Details

Aimé Millet (Paris 1819-1891)
The Adoration of the Shepherds (after Jusepe de Ribera)
black chalk (or charcoal), heightened with white on buff paper
16 x 12 in. (40 x 30.5 cm)

Provenance

Presented by the artist to Léchard (according to the cartouche on the back), and by Lechard's daughter to Henri Rouart, Paris (1833-1912), November 1884.

Literature

V. Frond, Le Panthéon des illustrations françaises au XIXe siècle [...], Paris 1866, p. 2.
H. Dumesnil, Aimé Millet. Souvenirs intimes, Paris 1891, pp. 7, 85, no. 10.
A. Alexandre, La Collection Henri Rouart, Paris 1912, p. 164 (as Jean-François Millet).
V. Gerard Powell, C. Ressort, Musée du Louvre. Département des Peintures. Catalogue. École espagnole et portugaise, Paris 2002, p. 22 (as Jean-François Millet, whereabouts unknown).

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1847, no. 1892 (Catalogue complet du Salon de 1847, p. 169, no. 1892).
Kunsthalle, Basel (according to a label on the back of the frame).

Lot Essay

Long considered lost and until now published as by Jean-François Millet, this highly finished copy after Jusepe de Ribera's celebrated masterpiece in the Louvre can now be firmly attributed to the noted French sculptor, painter and designer Aimé Millet (no relation). As proof of the artist's skilled draftsmanship, this sheet was exhibited at the 1848 Salon. However, its attribution was forgotten quite soon after when the work entered the collection of the Impressionist artist and collector Henri Rouart. Together with other still untraced copies after the old masters (Sebastiano del Piombo, Francisco de Zurbarán and Philippe de Champagne), the present drawing is recorded in Henri Dumesnil's 1891 biography of the artist (see lit.). The nephew of the architect Louis-Julian Millet, Aimé joined the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris and the workshop of David d'Angers in 1836 before being appointed professor of the École in 1870.

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