Head of a man looking down: a study for Le Miracle des Ardents in the chapel of Sainte Geneviève, Saint-Séverin, Paris

This drawing is a preparatory study for the head of a figure lower left in the mural Le Miracle des Ardents in the chapel of Sainte Geneviève, in Saint-Séverin in Paris (fig. 1; see E. Brugerolles, Dessins d'Alexandre Hesse conservés à l'École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. Études pour les décorations peintes, Paris, 1988, pp. 7-10). Hesse received the commission in 1850 and created many preparatory sketches for each of the figures in this important decorative scheme. It was the artist’s practice to draw on a single sheet of paper separate studies for the body, the head and other details of a figure; several examples of this kind of study sheets are in the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris (see ibid., pp. 28-42). The present drawing, sold in 1979 together with a large group of studies from the artist’s studio, was most likely cut from a larger sheet.

Fig. 1. Jean-Baptiste-Alexandre Hesse. Le Miracle des Ardents. Chapel of Sainte Geneviève, Saint-Séverin, Paris.