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Artist or Maker: Ary Scheffer (Dutch, 1795-1858)
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Provenance: (Possibly) Goupil, Paris.
Freiherr von Lotzbeck, Schloss Weyhern, Munich, circa 1850.
Private collection, Munich (acquired from the descendents of the above), 1980.
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Exhibited: (possibly), Paris, Salon, 1846, No. 1603. .
Dresden, Grosse Halle, Grosse Kunstausstellung, 1904
Munich, Münchner Stadtmuseum, Biedermeiers Glück und Ende, 10 May - 30 September 1987, no. 8.1.14.
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Notes: VARIOUS PROPERTIES
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Like many Romantic artists of his time, Ary Scheffer drew much of his inspiration from literary sources such as Byron, Dante and Goethe. The latter's great poem Faust, first published in 1808, and with its roots in the sixteenth century, provided a deep well of material for artists working in the troubadour style. Including artists such as Jacques Tissot (see next lot), Pierre Révoil and Paul Delaroche, this vein of Romanticism reflected a fascination for the art and history of the Middle Ages.
Scheffer painted at least eight large-scale works illustrating episodes from Goethe's tragedy, mostly centred on Faust's relationship with Marguerite (Gretchen). Like the present work, they reveal an Ingresque fascination with line and slightly idealized sinuations of human
form.
Turned into a handsome young man, Faust seduces Gretchen, a maiden of great virtue. Falling pregnant with Faust's baby, Gretchen is tormented by guilt, which is further heightened by the death of her brother Valentine, who had fought Faust in a duel to avenge his sister's honour. Gretchen drowns her newborn child in her despair, and is condemned to death. At the end of the poem, Faust enters her cell and pleads with her to escape. Seeing that Faust no longer loves, but pities her, she refuses, although we learn from voices above that her heavenly salvation is assured.
The present work describes an episode from Goethe's drama in which Faust stands transfixed before a vision of Gretchen holding their dead child:
"Faust. In truth, the eyes of one who's dead are those,
Which there was no fond, loving hand to close;
That is the breast that Gretchen offered me,
That is the body sweet that I enjoyed.
Mephistopheles. It's sorcery, you fool, you're easily decoyed!
She seems to each as though his love were she.
Faust. What rapture! Ah, what misery!
Yet from this vision I can't turn aside."
Although partly obscured by old varnish, the witches can be seen in the upper part of the composition. Scheffer has strayed slightly from Goethe's description of the scene, which he evoked in another version of the composition (see below) by adding a crow in the foreground, removing the red line around Gretchen's neck, and replacing Mephistopholes' cloven feet with claws.
Scheffer is thought to have painted at least two large-scale versions of the present composition, although it is unclear whether or not this is the canvas exhibited at the 1846 Salon. The preparatory drawing in the Dordrecht Museum (see fig. 1) shows Mephistopholes with cloven-feet and Marguerite holding her baby differently, but the finished replica oil in the same museum is an identical composition to the present lot. Further, Vitet (op. cit.) illustrates the present lot, clearly dated 1842, but lists the work in his index as having been painted in 1846. The matter is also confused by L. Ewals (op. cit Paris) who wrote, "In the later replica seen here [i.e. the smaller version in Dordrecht, identical to this lot], Mephisto no longer has hooves, but claws, and the red line has disappeared from Marguerites's neck. This last alteration might perhaps be due to the criticism which Théophile Gautier made when he saw the first version, at the 1846 Salon, which dated to 1842." Thus Ewals confuses the date of this work with the subject of another full-scale canvas, the whereabouts of which is unknown.
