Daphnis and Chloé (Le Printemps)

Details

JEAN-FRANÇOIS MILLET (GRUCHY 1814-1875 BARBIZON)
Daphnis and Chloé (Le Printemps)
charcoal and pastel, charcoal framing lines
38.7 x 23.2 cm (15 1⁄4 x 9 1⁄4 in.)

Provenance

The artist's studio; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10 May 1875, lot 60 (L.1816a; L.1460b).
Henri Rouart (1833-1912), Paris; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 16-18 December 1912, lot 214.
with Galerie Hector Brame, Paris (Millet, 1938, no. 46).
Louis Rouart (1875-1964), Paris; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 14 March 1969, lot 34.

Exhibited

Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, J.-F. Millet, 1887, no. 76, ill.
Geneva, Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, De Watteau à Cézanne, 1951, no. 173, ill.

Special notice

This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

In 1864, thanks to the architect Alfred-Louis Feydeau, Millet received a commission from a wealthy financier in Colmar, Charles-Xavier Thomas, to decorate the dining room of his Parisian mansion on the Boulevard Haussmann. The artist represented the Four Seasons through mythological subjects. The ceiling illustrated Autumn, while three large lateral panels were devoted to Summer, Winter, and lastly Spring – where Daphnis and Chloé are seen feeding the birds.
The present pastel is a preparatory study for Spring, formerly in the Matsuka collection and now in the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo (fig. 1; inv. P. 1959-146). Another pastel related to the painted decoration, larger (66 x 34.2 cm) and more finished than the present drawing (perhaps a ricordo), was on the art market in 1937 (J.-F. Millet. A Loan Exhibition in aid of the National Library for the Blind, exhib. cat., Wilsdenstein & Co., London, 1969, no. 40).

Fig. 1. Jean-François Millet, Spring (Daphnis and Chloë), National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo.

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