A Woman running, turning backward

A study for the figure on the right of the picture Spring: Roman Woman paying Hommage to Juno Lacine exhibited at the Salon of 1789 and now in the Musée des Beaux Arts, Amiens. The composition was engraved in reverse by Le Vasseur (fig. 1), J.-F. Heim, C. Béraud and P. Heim, Les Salons de peinture de la Révolution Française, 1789-1799, Paris, 1989, p. 158, illustrated. The picture was number 65 in the catalogue of the Salon and in the supplement its composition is described as 'Cette déesse avoit enseigné aux Hommes la manière de faire venir le blé & d'en former du pain; au milieu des Sacrifices qu'on lui offroit, Les Femmes vêtues de blanc, couroient avec des flambeaux allumés en ressouvenir de Cérès qui, à la clarté des torches enflammées, avoit parcouru la Sicile pour chercher la fille Prosperine enlevée par Pluton. On lui offroit des porcs pour victimes.' The cartoon was part of a series of Seasons commissioned by the direction des bâtiments du Roi in 1782, M. Sandoz, Antoine-François Callet, Paris, 1985, nos. 26, 55, 61, 64, pl. VI. The cartoons were to be used as models to be woven by the Gobelins, probably to replace Claude Audran's designs of the Portières des Dieux. The first cartoon was exhibited at the Salon of 1783, the second in 1787 and the last in 1791.
When the Spring was exhibited one the most elogious reviews was published in the Journal de Paris which described it as 'un des plus harmonieux qui soient sortis du maître'. Following its exhibition at the Salon the cartoon was transfered to the Gobelins where the weaving began in 1793. A second series of tapestries was made in 1807.