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Lot Essay
The year 1765 was something of an annus mirablis for Louis Lagrenée. The painter had long followed the prescribed route to official success: he trained with Carle Vanloo, won the Prix de Rome in 1749, studied at the École royale des élèves protégés, and the French Academy in Rome, became a member of the art Académies in St. Petersburg and Paris, and exhibited prominently in the Salon. Yet it was at the Salon of 1765, to which he submitted a dozen works, that Lagrenée won Diderot's unqualified approval. In his highly influential commentaries on the biannual exhibition, Diderot for the first time placed Lagrenée on an equal footing with Greuze and Vernet, his favorite painters. He saw Lagrenée succeeding Deshays -- who had just died suddenly at the age of thirty-five -- as the last and best hope for reforming the 'decadent' French school: he opened his review of Lagrenée's performance with a quotation from Virgil: 'Magnae spes altera Romae'--'the second great hope of Rome'.
'This is a real painter,' wrote Diderot. 'he has drawing, color, flesh, expression, the most beautiful draperies, the most beautifully characterized heads, everything except verve. What a great painter, if only he'd acquire some temperament! His compositions are simple, his actions truthful, his color beautiful and solid....There are pictures by him in which the severest eye fails to discern the slightest fault' (J. Goodman's translation, op. cit.). So taken was the philosophe with Lagrenée's paintings at the 1765 Salon that he purchased one for himself: a small Magdalene on copper (no. 29), today in a private collection in France.
Nevertheless, The Return of Abraham to the Land of Canaan -- another of Lagrenée's entries in the exhibition -- did not meet with the unqualified praise of every reviewer. Mathon de la Cour, in his Lettres a Monsieur **, found the painting 'cold', though he did not blame Lagrenée for this weakness but regarded it as a fault inherent in the choice of a dull subject that could provide the artist with no incidents to paint or emotions to express. However, Diderot was more perceptive in recognizing the ingenuity with which Lagrenée universalized a biblical episode: 'It's absolutely necessary to identify this subject underneath the painting, for a landscape with mountains could be Canaan, or it could be somewhere else; a man making his way towards these mountains, followed by a man and a woman, could be Abraham and Sarah with their servants, or some other master with his wife and manservant.' Certainly, Lagrenée's painting provides few internal clues as to what episode in the Old Testament tale has been depicted, though its title suggests that it is Abraham, the first Hebrew patriarch, returning to Canaan with his wife and household following their escape to Egypt during the famine. Diderot, who was never very concerned with such matters, concluded that 'whatever the subject, this work is admirable for its vigorous coloring, the beauty of the site and the truth of the travellers and animals'.
Lagrenée's highly polished cabinet picture seems to have been made specifically for exhibition in the Salon: in his account book, drawn up in 1780, and published by the Goncourts a century later, Lagrenée recorded no patron or purchaser for the painting, though it must have been sold before the artist's death as it did not appear in his estate sale.
'This is a real painter,' wrote Diderot. 'he has drawing, color, flesh, expression, the most beautiful draperies, the most beautifully characterized heads, everything except verve. What a great painter, if only he'd acquire some temperament! His compositions are simple, his actions truthful, his color beautiful and solid....There are pictures by him in which the severest eye fails to discern the slightest fault' (J. Goodman's translation, op. cit.). So taken was the philosophe with Lagrenée's paintings at the 1765 Salon that he purchased one for himself: a small Magdalene on copper (no. 29), today in a private collection in France.
Nevertheless, The Return of Abraham to the Land of Canaan -- another of Lagrenée's entries in the exhibition -- did not meet with the unqualified praise of every reviewer. Mathon de la Cour, in his Lettres a Monsieur **, found the painting 'cold', though he did not blame Lagrenée for this weakness but regarded it as a fault inherent in the choice of a dull subject that could provide the artist with no incidents to paint or emotions to express. However, Diderot was more perceptive in recognizing the ingenuity with which Lagrenée universalized a biblical episode: 'It's absolutely necessary to identify this subject underneath the painting, for a landscape with mountains could be Canaan, or it could be somewhere else; a man making his way towards these mountains, followed by a man and a woman, could be Abraham and Sarah with their servants, or some other master with his wife and manservant.' Certainly, Lagrenée's painting provides few internal clues as to what episode in the Old Testament tale has been depicted, though its title suggests that it is Abraham, the first Hebrew patriarch, returning to Canaan with his wife and household following their escape to Egypt during the famine. Diderot, who was never very concerned with such matters, concluded that 'whatever the subject, this work is admirable for its vigorous coloring, the beauty of the site and the truth of the travellers and animals'.
Lagrenée's highly polished cabinet picture seems to have been made specifically for exhibition in the Salon: in his account book, drawn up in 1780, and published by the Goncourts a century later, Lagrenée recorded no patron or purchaser for the painting, though it must have been sold before the artist's death as it did not appear in his estate sale.