The artist’s son Michel-Martin reading, with two studies of his left hand

This Alsatian artist entered the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1779 and gained celebrity at the Salon from 1793 to 1817, when he presented his famous Kitchen interior, now at the Louvre (inv. 4097). This detailed red chalk drawing, with a delicate sketch, in black chalk lower right, of the left hand turning a page of a book, is preparatory for a panel painting of The Artist’s Son, Michel-Martin Drolling (1786-1851), reading in front of an open window overlooking the Place Vendôme: it is dated around 1800-1806 (private collection, Vie-sur Cère, France; Dessins du XVI^e au XIX^e siècle, exh. cat., Paris Galerie Alexis Bordes, 2013, under n° 20). Another portrait, though on canvas, of Michel-Martin holding a violin and leaning out of a window, dated from the same period, is in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (inv. M.81.38; S. Schaefer, P. Fusco, European Paintings and Sculpture in the Los Angeles County Museum of Art: An illustrated Summary Catalogue, Los Angeles, 1987, p. 38). The present drawing's subject makes it a significant rarity.