.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Known through a number of autograph replicas and innumerable photo and print reproductions, Sortie du bal masqué was and remains one of Jean-Léon Gérôme’s most popular and recognizable compositions. Inspired by a real-life event which was notorious in Paris in the mid-1850s, Gérôme’s depiction of the aftermath of a duel in the Bois de Boulogne is a brilliant example of the human pathos, theatricality, and compositional innovation the artist is best remembered for today. The present version is one of five oils depicting the subject, three of which are found today in museum collections (the Musée Condé in Chantilly, The Walters Art Museum, and the Hermitage).
Professor Gerald Ackerman has identified this work as an esquisse created by Gérôme as he was initially working out the composition. Indeed, the central figure group is not as highly finished as is found in the larger versions of the composition and much of the remainder of the composition is left in a relatively sketchy state of finish. Unlike the other versions, this version omits the feathers which have fallen from the headdress of the figure dressed as a Native American. The position of the coach seen in the background as well is markedly different to the other versions which place it more centrally. An early description of the Chantilly picture mentions a background figure of 'a coachman throwing up his hands in horror' (London, Athenaeum, January 1858). It was painted out, but the pentimento can still be seen in the Chantilly version, while no such figure is found in this work. This may suggest that this work is perhaps not preparatory, or possibly that this figure was added on a whim to the Chantilly version by the artist.
The brushwork and tone of the ébauche finish of the background effectively add to the enclosed atmosphere of a snowy night in a wood. In Sortie du bal masque Gérôme returned to a pictorial arrangement he had used to great effect in other celebrated paintings – juxtaposing a dead or dying figure in the foreground with those who had committed the act departing the scene. This arrangement was inspired by Delaroche’s L’assassinat du duc de Guise au château de Blois en 1588, and Gérôme expanded on the idea in several major works from this same period, including La Mort de César, Jérusalem and L'exécution du maréchal Ney. It was one that would create a particularly striking effect in this painting. Thomas Couture, who had begun his own depiction of the same subject (he claimed) before Gérôme had started his, was upset by the success of Gérôme’s take on the infamous duel as compared to his own. Couture’s painting, which instead depicts the combatants readying their weapons, has none of the dramatic tension and implied action of Gérôme’s composition.
The duel here depicted took place in the winter of 1856-1857 between a former police commissioner named Symphorien Casimir Boittelle and an elected official named Deluns-Montaud (possibly Delus-Montaud) following a masked ball that both had attended (C. O. Parsons, ‘The Wintry Duel: A Victorian Import’, Victorian Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, 1959, p. 317). The duel became notorious not only because of the identities of the combatants, but because they remained in the commedia dell'arte costumes they had worn to the ball, with Boittelle dressed as the naïve and unfortunate Pierrot and Deluns-Montaud dressed as his rival Harlequin. In spite of his injuries as depicted by Gérôme, Boittelle in fact survived the incident and went on to serve as a senator. He ultimately died in 1897 and is buried at Père Lachaise.
What is most notable in Gérôme’s composition is its theatricality, another commonly used trope in the artist’s oeuvre. The trees behind the figures create a pseudo-proscenium, defining the snowy ‘stage’ of the foreground on which the figures act out their tragedy. Though it is a dark and cloudy night with no hint of moonlight, the figures and foreground are lit as though from lights along the edge of a stage. Indeed when a caricature of this work was published with others exhibited in the Salon of 1857 it depicted the figures as puppets in a puppet theater, with the curtains pulled aside. The progression within the reactions of the figures holding up the limp body of Pierrot adds to the theatricality as well. Their expressions – of concern, horror, and frantic examination to see if their compatriot is still alive – mirror the progression of the viewer’s own emotions upon viewing the scene and connecting its narrative threads.
The collector to whom this work is inscribed is Pierre-Émile-Joseph Pécarrère (1816 - 1904), an important if enigmatic early photographer. His negatives are often signed 'Em. Pec,' though this name is not found in any early photographic journals, photographic societies, or exhibition catalogues, and his last name has been inconsistently spelled Peccarrère, Pecarrère, Pecarère, and Pecarer. A lawyer who learned photography from Gustave Le Gray, he was a founding member of the Société Héliographique, and seems to have been active throughout France, Spain, and Italy from the early 1850s. It was a common practice for Gérôme to make a small preparatory oil sketch for his compositions. When he was finished, he would often work up one figure or figural group, leaving the rest in an ébauche stage, and inscribe it to a friend, or sometimes to a client. Emily Weeks has noted that the nature of Gérôme's inscriptions gives us insight into both how a work came into an owner’s possession and the artist’s own view of the work’s importance. For gifts or preparatory sketches and very early works, Gérôme would use lower case letters in his inscription as they carried a more informal and intimate connotation, as with the present work. In others, the artist would use upper case letters in his inscriptions to denote more formal, mature and ‘finished’ works which were sold more often than gifted.
This work will be included in Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D.'s revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation.
Professor Gerald Ackerman has identified this work as an esquisse created by Gérôme as he was initially working out the composition. Indeed, the central figure group is not as highly finished as is found in the larger versions of the composition and much of the remainder of the composition is left in a relatively sketchy state of finish. Unlike the other versions, this version omits the feathers which have fallen from the headdress of the figure dressed as a Native American. The position of the coach seen in the background as well is markedly different to the other versions which place it more centrally. An early description of the Chantilly picture mentions a background figure of 'a coachman throwing up his hands in horror' (London, Athenaeum, January 1858). It was painted out, but the pentimento can still be seen in the Chantilly version, while no such figure is found in this work. This may suggest that this work is perhaps not preparatory, or possibly that this figure was added on a whim to the Chantilly version by the artist.
The brushwork and tone of the ébauche finish of the background effectively add to the enclosed atmosphere of a snowy night in a wood. In Sortie du bal masque Gérôme returned to a pictorial arrangement he had used to great effect in other celebrated paintings – juxtaposing a dead or dying figure in the foreground with those who had committed the act departing the scene. This arrangement was inspired by Delaroche’s L’assassinat du duc de Guise au château de Blois en 1588, and Gérôme expanded on the idea in several major works from this same period, including La Mort de César, Jérusalem and L'exécution du maréchal Ney. It was one that would create a particularly striking effect in this painting. Thomas Couture, who had begun his own depiction of the same subject (he claimed) before Gérôme had started his, was upset by the success of Gérôme’s take on the infamous duel as compared to his own. Couture’s painting, which instead depicts the combatants readying their weapons, has none of the dramatic tension and implied action of Gérôme’s composition.
The duel here depicted took place in the winter of 1856-1857 between a former police commissioner named Symphorien Casimir Boittelle and an elected official named Deluns-Montaud (possibly Delus-Montaud) following a masked ball that both had attended (C. O. Parsons, ‘The Wintry Duel: A Victorian Import’, Victorian Studies, vol. 2, no. 4, 1959, p. 317). The duel became notorious not only because of the identities of the combatants, but because they remained in the commedia dell'arte costumes they had worn to the ball, with Boittelle dressed as the naïve and unfortunate Pierrot and Deluns-Montaud dressed as his rival Harlequin. In spite of his injuries as depicted by Gérôme, Boittelle in fact survived the incident and went on to serve as a senator. He ultimately died in 1897 and is buried at Père Lachaise.
What is most notable in Gérôme’s composition is its theatricality, another commonly used trope in the artist’s oeuvre. The trees behind the figures create a pseudo-proscenium, defining the snowy ‘stage’ of the foreground on which the figures act out their tragedy. Though it is a dark and cloudy night with no hint of moonlight, the figures and foreground are lit as though from lights along the edge of a stage. Indeed when a caricature of this work was published with others exhibited in the Salon of 1857 it depicted the figures as puppets in a puppet theater, with the curtains pulled aside. The progression within the reactions of the figures holding up the limp body of Pierrot adds to the theatricality as well. Their expressions – of concern, horror, and frantic examination to see if their compatriot is still alive – mirror the progression of the viewer’s own emotions upon viewing the scene and connecting its narrative threads.
The collector to whom this work is inscribed is Pierre-Émile-Joseph Pécarrère (1816 - 1904), an important if enigmatic early photographer. His negatives are often signed 'Em. Pec,' though this name is not found in any early photographic journals, photographic societies, or exhibition catalogues, and his last name has been inconsistently spelled Peccarrère, Pecarrère, Pecarère, and Pecarer. A lawyer who learned photography from Gustave Le Gray, he was a founding member of the Société Héliographique, and seems to have been active throughout France, Spain, and Italy from the early 1850s. It was a common practice for Gérôme to make a small preparatory oil sketch for his compositions. When he was finished, he would often work up one figure or figural group, leaving the rest in an ébauche stage, and inscribe it to a friend, or sometimes to a client. Emily Weeks has noted that the nature of Gérôme's inscriptions gives us insight into both how a work came into an owner’s possession and the artist’s own view of the work’s importance. For gifts or preparatory sketches and very early works, Gérôme would use lower case letters in his inscription as they carried a more informal and intimate connotation, as with the present work. In others, the artist would use upper case letters in his inscriptions to denote more formal, mature and ‘finished’ works which were sold more often than gifted.
This work will be included in Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D.'s revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation.