拍品專文
The present study along with another at the Musée du Louvre is related to a large presentation drawing in the Musée Carnavalet in Paris entitled Le Triomphe du Peuple Français, a composition which according to Alexandre Lenoir would have been a design for a stage curtain of the Opéra in Paris. There is however no documentary evidence to support this idea.
The composition was described by Jules David in 1880 as 'Le Peuple français tenant sa massue est assis sur un char trainé pour quatre taureaux. L'Egalité et la Liberté sont assises sur ses genoux. La Science, l'Art, le Commerce, l'Abondance sont groupés sur le devant du char. En avant de l'attelage des citoyens s'élancent armés de glaives sur les tyrans en fuite. Les martyrs antiques de la liberté Cornélie et ses enfants, Brutus, Guillaume Tell et son fils, portant des palmes, accompagnent le char qui roule sur les attributs du despostisme et de la superstition.' [The allegorical figure of the French people holding a club is seated on a chariot pulled by four oxen. The figures of Equality and Liberty are seated on her knees. Science, Art, Commerce, and Abundance are grouped on the front of the chariot. Citiezens run before the chariot, armed with swords after the fleeing tyrants.]
Although closer in technique with the sheet at the Louvre, it is similar in composition with the more finished drawing at the Musée Carnavalet. The same squaring in black chalk bearing a corresponding numbering is visible at the bottom of the drawing, and is also noticeable on the Louvre drawing. The shape and decoration of the chariot in the present drawing is defined and slightly simplified in the finished version. The grouping of Abundance, Science and Art is already set, although Commerce is only sketched and does not yet have its attributes. The tails of the oxen are swirling in the air but only one of them remains in the later version. The pediment on which the allegorical figures of the French People are placed is more heavily decorated than the one that will become a simpler plinth in the later version, where the frieze of virtues on the side of the chariot displays a more lively figure of charity kneeling towards children coming up to her. In the Carnavalet drawing, Charity is reclining.
A further support to the attribution is a lithograph which Jean Baptiste Debret (1768-1848) made in 1838 and 1839 after the Louvre drawing for the annual dinner of the old students of David. The present drawing which was owned according to the inscription by Charles Moreau, student of David and architect, belonged as well to Debret and then to Duban and was part of an album in which drawings by the same students of David appear.
In the more complete drawing at the Musée Carnavalet various political figures are depicted behind the chariot; this leads Professor Schnapper to date the execution of the drawings related to this project, between the 16 April 1794 and 11 July 1794.
The composition was described by Jules David in 1880 as 'Le Peuple français tenant sa massue est assis sur un char trainé pour quatre taureaux. L'Egalité et la Liberté sont assises sur ses genoux. La Science, l'Art, le Commerce, l'Abondance sont groupés sur le devant du char. En avant de l'attelage des citoyens s'élancent armés de glaives sur les tyrans en fuite. Les martyrs antiques de la liberté Cornélie et ses enfants, Brutus, Guillaume Tell et son fils, portant des palmes, accompagnent le char qui roule sur les attributs du despostisme et de la superstition.' [The allegorical figure of the French people holding a club is seated on a chariot pulled by four oxen. The figures of Equality and Liberty are seated on her knees. Science, Art, Commerce, and Abundance are grouped on the front of the chariot. Citiezens run before the chariot, armed with swords after the fleeing tyrants.]
Although closer in technique with the sheet at the Louvre, it is similar in composition with the more finished drawing at the Musée Carnavalet. The same squaring in black chalk bearing a corresponding numbering is visible at the bottom of the drawing, and is also noticeable on the Louvre drawing. The shape and decoration of the chariot in the present drawing is defined and slightly simplified in the finished version. The grouping of Abundance, Science and Art is already set, although Commerce is only sketched and does not yet have its attributes. The tails of the oxen are swirling in the air but only one of them remains in the later version. The pediment on which the allegorical figures of the French People are placed is more heavily decorated than the one that will become a simpler plinth in the later version, where the frieze of virtues on the side of the chariot displays a more lively figure of charity kneeling towards children coming up to her. In the Carnavalet drawing, Charity is reclining.
A further support to the attribution is a lithograph which Jean Baptiste Debret (1768-1848) made in 1838 and 1839 after the Louvre drawing for the annual dinner of the old students of David. The present drawing which was owned according to the inscription by Charles Moreau, student of David and architect, belonged as well to Debret and then to Duban and was part of an album in which drawings by the same students of David appear.
In the more complete drawing at the Musée Carnavalet various political figures are depicted behind the chariot; this leads Professor Schnapper to date the execution of the drawings related to this project, between the 16 April 1794 and 11 July 1794.