拍品专文
A Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Satyr was painted by Jean-François Millet about 1846-47 and is one of a small number of very beautiful paintings of the female nude that are the principal achievement of the artist's translation from the Rococoesque innocence of his early career to the full-blown realism with which he would make his reputation a few years later. With its wild-haired satyr, a creature of the imagination and mythology, nearly lost in the shadows at the top of an embankment gazing down upon the very real and carefully observed nude asleep in the sunlit foreground, A Sleeping Nymph... clearly marks the intersection between the past and the future of Millet's art.
After leaving the École des Beaux-Arts late in 1839 or 1840, Millet attempted to establish a career as a portraitist, winning some measure of sucess during extended visits to his native Cherbourg in 1840 and 1844-45, but on his definitive return to Paris at the end of 1845, Millet found fame and fortune elusive in the far more competitive capital, and he gave much of his attention to preparing large scale mythological and historical works from prestigious Salon exhibitions. Although his Oedipus Detached from the Tree won him his first significant public notice at the Salon of 1847, such work would not support his growing family; and he was forced increasingly to produce small genre scenes or single figure studies that might be hawked to one of the modern art dealers catering to a new corps of modest collectors. Perhaps following the example of his new-found friends, Narcisse Diaz and Constant Troyon, who were both painting superb pictures of nudes in outdoor settings during the 1840s, Millet soon concentrated on scenes of sleeping women or bathers in sunstruck glades. Not only were such mildly erotic works the most easily marketed, they also encouraged the figure-drawing practice that Millet needed for his larger works (the Oedipus Detached from the Tree includes both a partially nude female seen from the side, and a male figure in the darkness of the painting's upper reaches, a more complex statement of the basic composition of a Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Satyr). Most importantly for the future of his art, such figure studies pushed Millet first toward a more realistic painting style and ultimately to truly Realist subject matter.
A Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Satyr is based on two sheets of drawings from the live model, a study of the entire figure (formerly collection Marcel Guérin) and studies of the woman's feet and upper torso (Oeffentlichen Kunstsammlung, Basel).
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.
After leaving the École des Beaux-Arts late in 1839 or 1840, Millet attempted to establish a career as a portraitist, winning some measure of sucess during extended visits to his native Cherbourg in 1840 and 1844-45, but on his definitive return to Paris at the end of 1845, Millet found fame and fortune elusive in the far more competitive capital, and he gave much of his attention to preparing large scale mythological and historical works from prestigious Salon exhibitions. Although his Oedipus Detached from the Tree won him his first significant public notice at the Salon of 1847, such work would not support his growing family; and he was forced increasingly to produce small genre scenes or single figure studies that might be hawked to one of the modern art dealers catering to a new corps of modest collectors. Perhaps following the example of his new-found friends, Narcisse Diaz and Constant Troyon, who were both painting superb pictures of nudes in outdoor settings during the 1840s, Millet soon concentrated on scenes of sleeping women or bathers in sunstruck glades. Not only were such mildly erotic works the most easily marketed, they also encouraged the figure-drawing practice that Millet needed for his larger works (the Oedipus Detached from the Tree includes both a partially nude female seen from the side, and a male figure in the darkness of the painting's upper reaches, a more complex statement of the basic composition of a Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Satyr). Most importantly for the future of his art, such figure studies pushed Millet first toward a more realistic painting style and ultimately to truly Realist subject matter.
A Sleeping Nymph Watched by a Satyr is based on two sheets of drawings from the live model, a study of the entire figure (formerly collection Marcel Guérin) and studies of the woman's feet and upper torso (Oeffentlichen Kunstsammlung, Basel).
We are grateful to Alexandra Murphy for her assistance in preparing this catalogue entry.