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Lot Essay
The earliest drawings known by Anne-Louis Girodet date from his childhood. A sheet in the Girodet Museum in Montargis, Sofonisba drinking the poison, was made when he was only fourteen (Bellenger, op. cit., 2009, p. 4). The artist’s precocious talent had struck his parents to the point that he was entrusted to Luquin, a drawing master from Montargis, before the age of seven. In his correspondence with his parents, in particular with his mother, the child's passion for drawing constantly returns.
This drawing, after an engraving by Vignon of Tamerlane (P. Pacht Bassani, Claude Vignon, Paris, 1992, pp. 288-289, 171G, ill.), is another of Girodet’s works form his teenage years. Despite his young age, Girodet goes beyond merely replicating the portrait; he reinterprets it, transforming Vignon's stern and unapproachable warrior into a striking yet sympathetic figure.
While the drawing is executed with precision and without hesitation, the signature and inscription ‘avé mon mêtre’ at lower right show a clumsy handwriting and therefore could date from the time when Girodet had not yet mastered spelling and writing completely. At the artist's funeral, his cousin Antoine Cesar Becquerel recalled that he had begun drawing before knowing how to write (Bellenger, op. cit., 2006, p. 23). It has been suggested that the inscription is a trope on the famous phrase ‘Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant’ (Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you) with which Girodet was mocking the cult of Latin, a prerequisite to being accepted into David’s studio, which the artist attended from 1784.
This drawing, after an engraving by Vignon of Tamerlane (P. Pacht Bassani, Claude Vignon, Paris, 1992, pp. 288-289, 171G, ill.), is another of Girodet’s works form his teenage years. Despite his young age, Girodet goes beyond merely replicating the portrait; he reinterprets it, transforming Vignon's stern and unapproachable warrior into a striking yet sympathetic figure.
While the drawing is executed with precision and without hesitation, the signature and inscription ‘avé mon mêtre’ at lower right show a clumsy handwriting and therefore could date from the time when Girodet had not yet mastered spelling and writing completely. At the artist's funeral, his cousin Antoine Cesar Becquerel recalled that he had begun drawing before knowing how to write (Bellenger, op. cit., 2006, p. 23). It has been suggested that the inscription is a trope on the famous phrase ‘Ave, Caesar, morituri te salutant’ (Hail Caesar, those who are about to die salute you) with which Girodet was mocking the cult of Latin, a prerequisite to being accepted into David’s studio, which the artist attended from 1784.