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Lot Essay
This enigmatic painting, with its vaporous atmosphere, lyrical tonality, and erotic undercurrent, exemplifies the refined Neoclassicism that flourished in France at the close of the eighteenth century. In the wake of the Revolution, a new class of patrons, shaped by the era’s profound social upheavals, sought works of art that privileged imagination and emotional resonance over heroic grandeur.
The present composition invites comparison with Girodet’s Danäe of 1798 (Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig) and his decorations at the Château de Compiègne. Its delicate modelling and spatial ambiguity place it firmly within the tradition cultivated by artists in Girodet’s circle. As George Levitine observed in his seminal dissertation on the artist, such painters often employed the human form as a vehicle for expressing the sentiments of the soul, placing their figures in ethereal, dreamlike environments to heighten their otherworldly effect (G. Levitine, Girodet-Trioson: An Iconographical Study, Cambridge, 1978, p. 198).
The present composition invites comparison with Girodet’s Danäe of 1798 (Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig) and his decorations at the Château de Compiègne. Its delicate modelling and spatial ambiguity place it firmly within the tradition cultivated by artists in Girodet’s circle. As George Levitine observed in his seminal dissertation on the artist, such painters often employed the human form as a vehicle for expressing the sentiments of the soul, placing their figures in ethereal, dreamlike environments to heighten their otherworldly effect (G. Levitine, Girodet-Trioson: An Iconographical Study, Cambridge, 1978, p. 198).