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Artist or Maker: Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Géricault (French, 1791-1824)
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Provenance: Eugène Delacroix; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 17-19 February 1864, lot 228 (as Le Sommeil des Apôtres d'après le Titien).
Boittelle; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 10-11 January 1867 lot 90 (as Les Apôtres au Jardin des Oliviers).
Dr. Émile Isambert; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 9 March 1877, lot 36.
Haro; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 5 Febuary 1912, lot 12.
André Dunoyer de Segonzac, Paris.
with Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., New York.
Private Collection, Taos, New Mexico.
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Exhibited: New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., Théodore Gericault, April - May 1987, no. 3.
New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., XIX Century Selections, no. 4 (illustrated), as Le Sommeil des Apôtres.
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Literature: G. Bazin, Théodore Gericault, 1987, vol.II, pp. 290-91, no. 295.
C. Clement, Gericault: Etude Biographique et Critique (reprint of 1879 edition with introduction and supplement by Lorenz Eitner), Paris, 1973, p. 33 and p. 321, no. 180.
Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., Theodore Gericault, April-May 1987, no. 3 (illustrated)
Exhibition Catalogue, New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., XIX Century Selections, no. 4 (illustrated), as Le Sommeil des Apôtres.
P. Grunchec, Tout L'Oeuvre Peint de Gericault, Paris, 1991, p. 86, no. 7 (as Sommeil des paysans).
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Notes: THE PROPERTY OF A PRIVATE COLLECTOR
After two brief apprenticeships in the studios of Carle Vernet and Guerin, Théodore Gericault's most sustained early training was at the Louvre, where he carefully studied and copied the Old Master paintings that Napoleon had brought to France. The Revolution had transformed the Royal collections into museums and emptied the churches of occupied Flanders into the Louvre. Napoleon thought that the stream of paintings and sculptures enriching the Paris museum would directly inspire French artists and enrich to artistic tradition of the country. The young Gericault was among the group of artists who set up their easels in the long galleries of the massive building on the Seine. The artist made copies after artists of the Italian, French and Spanish schools, and copied of works by Titian, Fabricius and Gros lined the walls of his room at the time of his death. At that time, more than sixty copies after the masters were found in his studio. Le sommeil des Paysans has been dated by Professor Lorenz Eitner circa 1812-1813 and most definitely belongs to this series of paintings after earlier masters executed in the during the years 1811-1815.
Clément has included this composition in his basic catalogue of Gericault's work under two different numbers, mentioning that it passed through the Delacroix collection, (Vente Delacroix, 1864, no. 228) where the original, upon which this copy is based, is attributed to Titian, and titled Sommeil des Apôtres. Delacroix bought the picture, along with thirteen other copies by Gericault at the studio sale held after the artist's death. Philippe Grunchec has also identified this painting as no. 228 from the Delacroix sale of 1864, but found that there was no corresponding subject among Titian's known works, and he advanced the suggestion that Gericault's model may have been a painting, possibly by Tintoretto illustrating The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares (Matthew 13:23) showing the workers asleep while the devil sows his tares. Grunchec amended his identification of the painting to Sleeping Peasants, after an unidentified master. In 1987, Bazin not only rejected the earlier readings of the picture's subject matter, but also questioned its provenance from the Delacroix collection based upon the erroneous belief that the picture in Delacroix's collection had been on canvas when no evidence supports this assumption. These two factors, the fact that Clément lists the painting twice and that the medium has been misidentified have conspired to complicate the history of this particular work. However, Lorenz Eitner confirms that Le Sommeil des paysans fits neatly into the context of Gericault's copies of the masters, and is an inportant example of the early artistic endeavors of the young Gericault.
This work has been authenticated by Professor Lorenz E. A. Eitner.
