Théodore GÉRICAULT (1791-1824)
Œnone refusant de secourir Pâris blessé

Oil on paper laid down on canvas, 5-5/8 x 8 in. (14.3 x 20.3 cm),
in a contemporary neoclassical gilded frame 7-1/2 x 10-1/4 in. (19 x 26 cm).

Provenance:
Gifted, by family tradition, by Géricault to Colonel (later Général) Louis Bro (1781-1844);
by descent to Colonel Olivier Bro de Comères (1813-1870);
by descent to Eugénie Louise Marie Bro de Comères (Madame Jean-Albert Pic-Paris).

Literature:
Clément, Charles, “Catalogue de l'oeuvre de Géricault - Peintures,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XXIII, September 1867, p. 290, no. 126 (as GUERRIER BLESSÉ A LA JAMBE GAUCHE, QUE PANSE UN VIEILLARD A GENOUX PRÈS DE LUI).
Clément, Charles, Géricault; étude biographique et critique, avec le Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre du maître (Paris: Didier et cie, 1868 and 1879), p. 309, no. 132 (in both editions) (as GUERRIER BLESSÉ A LA JAMBE GAUCHE, QUE PANSE UN VIEILLARD A GENOUX PRÈS DE LUI).
Eitner, Lorenz, “Géricault’s ‘Dying Paris’ and the Meaning of His Romantic Classicism,” Master Drawings, vol. 1, no. 1 (Spring, 1963), pp. 21-45.
Boime, Albert, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, London: Phaidon Pub., 1971, pp. 44-45 and p. 195, nn. 98-104.
Eitner, Lorenz, Supplément (Charles Clément: Géricault, étude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre du maître. Réimpression de l'edition définitive de 1879) (Paris: Léonce Laget, 1973), p. 455, no. 132.
Grunchec, Philippe, and Thuillier, Jacques, Tout l'oeuvre peint de Géricault (Paris: Flammarion, 1978), pp. 137-8, no. A100 (as Paris et Œnone), under “Attributed to Géricault” but identified with an oil sketch by H.-J. de Forestier (no. A100²).
Grunchec, Philippe, “Géricault, problèmes de méthode,” Revue de l'Art, no. 43, 1979, pp. 48, fig. 27, and p. 58, n. 120 (as Paris et Œnone by H.-J. de Forestier).
Szczepinska-Tramer, Joanna, “Notes on Géricault’s Early Chronology,” Master Drawings, vol. 20, no. 2 (Summer, 1982), pp. 135-148 and 199-201.
Grunchec, Philippe, Les concours des Prix de Rome de 1797 à 1863, Paris: École nationale supérieure des beaux-arts, 1983.
Eitner, Lorenz E.A., Gericault, his life and work (London, Orbis Pub., 1983).
Bazin, Germain, Théodore Géricault: étude critique, documents et catalogue raisonné (Paris: La Bibliothèque des arts, 1987), vol. II, pp. 321, 507-08, no. 538 (as Scéne d’histoire ancienne).

Exhibited:
Paris, Hôtel Jean Charpentier, Expositions d'oeuvres de Géricault (Paris: La Galerie, 1924), 24 April-16 May 1924 [the Géricault Centenary exhibition], no 63 (as Scéne d’histoire ancienne).

The critical dossier of this little esquisse sur papier vernis begins with Charles Clément’s seminal catalogue of Géricault’s work, of which Eitner has remarked: “Of the 199 paintings and 196 drawings which it contains, none has had to be rejected by modern scholarship. So strong is Clément’s authority even today that a listing in his catalogue is generally accepted as proof of authenticity.” (Eitner, Lorenz, Géricault; an album of drawings in the Art Institute of Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1960, at p. 44; to the same effect, his 1973 Supplément, listing the sketch as no. 132.) Clément cites the tradition that the sketch had been given by Géricault to Colonel (later Général) Louis Bro, from whom it passed by 1867 to his only son, Colonel Olivier Bro de Comères. Clément gives the sketch a functionally descriptive title and observes further, “Le blessé est soutenu par un jeune homme qui semble implorer une femme qui se détourne.”

The Bro provenance continued through the 1924 Paris Centenary organized by Pierre Dubaut and the Duc de Trévise, to which the sketch was loaned by Mme Pic-Paris, née Bro de Comères, daughter of Colonel Olivier. The Bro family owned several significant Géricault paintings through the close friendship which flourished between Géricault and Louis Bro, who in 1816 had moved his family to the pavillon at 23, rue des Martyrs which included the adjacent house of Géricault and his father. The Bros and Géricaults were all mutual neighbors and friends of Horace Vernet, whose New Athenian atelier was a hive of artists and Bonapartistes. When Géricault died in 1824, his closest friend Dedreux-Dorcy and Louis Bro were painted alone in vigil at his deathbed by Ary Scheffer (La Mort de Géricault, oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris).

Germain Bazin’s definitive catalogue raisonné of the 20th century, co-published with the Wildenstein Institute, emphasizes again the Bro provenance (at t. 2, p. 321): “Une liste des oeuvres de Géricault ayant appartenu à Olivier Bro de Comères, amiablement communiquée par un descendant, désigne ce tableau comme ‘Esquisse du Concours de Rome’. … Je le crois autographe, car j’en tiens la photographie d’un descendant de la famille Bro.” Bazin, cat. no. 538, offers the generic title Scène d’histoire ancienne and, elaborating on Clément, distinguishes “quatre personnages principaux: au centre un guerrier (?) blessé à la jambe, soutenu par un autre guerrier et soigné par un vieillard agenouillé. A gauche, une femme qui semble se détourne et s’éloigner. Au fond à droite, personnage retenant un cheval derrière lequel on aperçoit une statue sur un piédestal.”

In 1963 Eitner’s article “Géricault’s ‘Dying Paris’ and the Meaning of His Romantic Classicism” launched a re-examination of Gericault’s development between the Wounded Cuirassier of October, 1814 (Musée du Louvre, Paris) and the departure for Italy by October, 1816. Eitner demonstrates that a well-published drawing then in the Bühler collection, Winterthur, depicts not the death of Hector but rather the dying Paris rejected by Oenone. Eitner connects the Bühler drawing, which depicts only the right-hand portion of the scene, to six others showing the full scene, all of primarily nude figures and generally lively pen sketches. Having established the group, Eitner connects it to the subject for the Grand Concours de Peinture in the École des Beaux-Arts for the Grand Prix de Rome in the spring of 1816, illustrating the prize canvas (Paris, École des Beaux-Arts) and a preparatory drawing (Cambridge, Fogg Museum of Art) by Antoine J.B. Thomas (1791-1834) for The Dying Paris Rejected by Oenone. Eitner then expands to his larger thesis, that Gericault’s “antique manner” of 1814-1816 preceded his Italian sojourn of 1816-17 and evolved alongside his “romantic manner” beginning with the Charging Chasseur of 1812 (Musée du Louvre, Paris).

Since Eitner’s 1963 article additional works connected to the subject of the 1816 Grand Concours de Peinture have emerged. Philippe Grunchec, then curator of the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, published in his 1978 Géricault catalogue (op. cit., pp. 137-8, no. A100², 19.3 x 27.8 cm) a small oil sketch which he gave to Henri-Joseph de Forestier (1787-1872) and associated with the present sketch, included among the works “attributed to Géricault.” In his article of the next year (“Géricault, problèmes de méthode,” op. cit., pp. 48, 58 n. 120), Grunchec attributed the present sketch to Forestier as well, citing “… le propos d’Antoine Étex selon lequel Géricault ‘allait à Rome retrouver des artistes qu’il avait connus à Paris. (…) les peintures Forestier et Schnetz surtout, dont le talent sincère [lui] était très sympathique’ [Étex, Antoine, Les trois tombeaux de Géricault, Paris, 1885, p. 15],” but also giving deference to the Bro provenance, “… il fait certainement penser qu’O. Bro de Comères, dont les parents tenaient sans doubte l’oeuvre de Géricault lui-même, crut in toute sincérité qu’il en était l’auteur.”

Grunchec subsequently published in 1983 (Les concours des Prix de Rome de 1797 à 1863, op. cit., pp. 161-2) additional works on the theme of Paris et Œnone from the Grand Concours de Peinture of 1816: the Thomas prize canvas and drawing previously referenced; a canvas (pl. 3, 1.135 x 1.46 m, Musée Bargoin, Clermont-Ferrand) and an oil sketch (pl. 5, 18 x 23 cm, private collection) by Christophe-Thomas Degeorge (1786-1854); an unattributed oil sketch in a private collection (pl. 7); and a canvas then on the Paris art market (pl. 8) bearing Girodet’s monogram, indicating perhaps Girodet’s sponsorship of Joseph-Ferdinand Lancrenon (1794-1874), his only pupil entered in the final competition and the second-place winner. Additionally, Jean-Victor Schnetz’s third-place canvas (1.11 x “1.14” [but 1.41?] m, Saint-Aigan-sur-Cher, Mairie) was published in the Schnetz retrospective at the Musée du Chateau de Flers (Jean-Victor Schnetz, 1787-1870: couleurs d’Italie, ed. Laurence Chesneau-Dupin, Cabourg: Éditions cahiers du temps, 2000, p. 97, fig. 9, and p. 178, n. 22).

Further details of the concours of 1816 are set out in Joanna Szczepinska-Tramer’s 1982 “Notes on Géricault’s Early Chronology” (op. cit., particularly at Appendices II and IIa and nn. 7-9, pp. 145-7) and Eitner’s 1983 Life and Work (op. cit., particularly “Prelude to Italy,” pp. 87-97). On March 18, 1816 François Gérard, Professeur in charge, set the topic “Enée voulant tuer hélène refugiée auprès de la statue de Vesta est arreté par Vénus” for the first concours of 29 Élèves, of whom 18, including Géricault in eleventh place, were admitted to the second trial, the étude académique. Géricault did not survive the academic trial; the ten Elèves admitted on March 30th to the Grand Concours included Thomas, Lancrenon, Schnetz, Degeorge (all mentioned above) and six others, including Léon Cogniet (1794-1880) and Jean Bruno Gassiès (1786-1832), known friends of Géricault. Forestier, Rome winner in 1813, was not a contestant in 1816 and was still in Rome in June and probably through the end of 1816 as well (Lapauze, Henry, Histoire de l’Académie de France à Rome, Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1924, t. 2, pp. 118 ff.).

The topic for the 1816 Grand Concours, “Oenone refusant de secourir Paris blessé,” was among nine possible, supposedly secret choices; three were selected at a meeting of the painting section of the Académie on April 1st at eight in the morning to be placed in an urn; the final topic was drawn by chance and forthwith given to the ten finalists by the secretary and two members of the section. The students were given a summary description with which they were expected to be familiar from their studies: “Oenone refusant de secourir Paris blessé. Paris blessé au Siège de Troie par les flèches de Philoctète se fait porter sur la mont Ida près d’Oenone, son éspouse, qui cedant au ressentiment d’avoir été délaissée refuse de panser sa blessure et le laisse mourir.” Then they were isolated in individual curtained loges to produce a preliminary drawing in the first day, thereafter a full canvas of standard size ("toile de 80”) in the 71 succeeding days, policed by invigilators who by regulation would permit no aides memoires other than generic nude sketches.

As Géricault (and Forestier) did not participate in the 1816 Grand Concours, an explanation must be found for the present sketch and the other sketch published by Grunchec (1978, no. A100²) as Forestier. Eitner and Szczepinska-Tramer alike place Géricault’s firmly ascribed pen sketches of Paris et Œnone in the spring and early summer of 1816, and in particular during the 72-day period of the definitive concours, when the coterie of contestants and non-contestants might gather at night to play off each other in the eternal manner of artists. Géricault’s arch purpose was to get to Rome, which required a certain preparation for the esoteric concours trials which might be devised at the École and a certain obsequience to the norms of the Villa Medici. Thus Géricault inserted in his sketchbook known as the Carnet Zoubaloff (Musée du Louvre, Paris) both an array of strategic ready-made vignettes methodologically copied from Flaxman as aides memoires for the range of arcane subject-matter, and also more evolved sketches in a classical vein: Eitner, Life and Work (op. cit., pp. 80-1, figs. 60, 61, 62), illustrates the succession of a dry copy of Helen from plate 7 of Pignoli’s Flaxman Iliad, a faithful but more muscular wash drawing of the Helen figure and a yet more freely rendered wash drawing of a nude figure directly derived from the latter. On page 10 of the Zoubaloff album Géricault copied an array of classical women figures, including at least two (particularly the one lower right) of which are reminiscent of the Oenone in the present sketch (ibid., p. 79, fig. 59). Similarly, a classical drawing of a Wounded Warrior with Attendants (ibid., p. 93, fig. 78, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon, dated to 1816) who, supported erect rather than recumbent, is being treated for a wound of his left thigh, is suggestive of the Paris of the present sketch, who is rendered standing while bleeding in the leg rather than abdomen.

Grunchec’s attribution (1979, op. cit.) of the present sketch to Forestier is not convincing. First, Grunchec’s cited reasons, the association with another, slightly larger sketch which he gives to Forestier and a reunion of Géricault with his Paris friends in Rome, are countered by the stylistic analogy of the Paris and Oenone figures to firmly ascribed Géricault drawings both in the Zoubaloff album and elaborated from it by 1816. Second, the dating of Géricault’s oil sketches from the period is more confounding, treacherously so, compared with the dating of the drawings. Indeed, Eitner (ibid., p. 89, fig. 72 and n. 126) associates two oil sketches directly with drawings in the Zoubaloff album which Grunchec had given to Géricault later in Rome, and in the case of an oil painting on paper of Two Horses in a Stable, accepted by Bazin (op. cit., vol. III, pp. 16, 111, no. 614) as from 1810-2, Eitner and Grunchec took opposite views not once but twice, each reversing his original position (Sotheby’s, New York, sale N08516, January 29, 2009, lot 82). Third, other oil sketches on the Paris et Œnone theme have been identified, including one by Degeorge in size similar to the present. The deviations of the sketch published by Grunchec as Forestier (1978, no. A100²) and the present one from the formula imposed on the finalists in the Grand Concours may simply indicate, for example, either a compositional assignment (with deliberate variations) for two students in one of the ateliers of the École or an artistic dialogue (perhaps a sketching contest) between two artists freed from the formulaic restrictions. Fourth, the present sketch is more coherently and vigorously composed than Grunchec’s Forestier sketch and includes, uniquely, the flowing figure restraining the horse in the background, a motif apparent in some sketches in the “Sketchbook of 1813-14” portion of the Chicago Album (Eitner, Géricault; an album of drawings…, 1960, supra, see Folio 41 Verso, pp. 33-4) and the sketches for the Race of the Riderless (or Barberi) Horses of 1817 (e.g., 37.189, Walters Art Museum, Baltimore). Finally, the Bro provenance is a given, and no connection between Louis Bro and Forestier or any of the contestants in the 1816 concours of the École other than Géricault has been found, either directly or through Géricault.

In April, 1816 the Académiciens and the professeurs of the École decided both to mandate an esquisse peinte as the submission for the preliminary trial for the Grand Concours de Peinture, commencing with 1817 (previously, a drawing was optional) and to institute a semi-annual concours de composition commencing October, 1816, again mandating the esquisse peinte. Guérin, who remained Géricault's professeur of record in the École for the preliminary concours of March, 1816, was instrumental in effecting these changes and may be supposed to have enhanced his instruction in this area. See Boime, The Academy and French Painting in the Nineteenth Century, op. cit., pp. 44-5. Accordingly, the artist of the present sketch and indeed the artist of Grunchec's no. A100² (1978) might be imagined as working an esquisse composition assignment given sometime in the spring of 1816 by a professeur borrowing the previously announced theme of the Grand Concours de Peinture. Indeed, further to this theory, the superimposed touches of paint on the present sketch which do not fluoresce under the thin old varnish might be retouching by the professeur (a practice for which Guérin especially was noted).

The traditional Bro family designation of the present sketch as “Esquisse du Concours de Rome” (Bazin, supra) thus contains a large kernel of truth. The cumulative evidence suggests that Géricault was deeply interested in the evolution of the Paris et Œnone theme during the ten weeks while the ten finalists were creating their canvases for the Rome prize in 1816. The present sketch may be taken as an early attempt to work out elements of the theme from drawings in or derived from the Zoubaloff album, the more precious because Géricault’s submission for the first concours of 1816, Enée … arreté par Vénus, has disappeared without trace.

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