Beschreibung:

Details
FRANCOIS-PASCAL-SIMON GÉRARD, DIT BARON GÉRARD (ROME 1770-1837 PARIS)
La Distribution des aigles
pierre noire, estompe
21,4 x 17,6 cm (8 3/8 x 6 7/8 in.)
Provenance
Georges d’Esparbès (1863-1944), d’où offert à.
Arthur Meyer (1844-1924).
Literature
G. d’Esparbès, La Légende de l’Aigle, Paris, 1901 (dessin inséré dans un tirage hors commerce aux armes d’Arthur Meyer, comme J.-L. David).
Post lot text
FRANCOIS-PASCAL-SIMON GÉRARD, CALLED BARON GÉRARD, THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE EAGLES, BLACK CHALK, STUMPING
This drawing was once in one of the 35 copies of the first edition of Georges d’Esparbès’s La Légende de l'aigle (Paris, 1901), with a letter to Arthur Meyer. The copy of the book was enriched with the present drawing and a caption reading (in translation) ‘The distribution of the Eagles. Sketch by David for his painting at the Louvre’ However, the graphic writing with a multitude of contour lines, the long limbs of the figures and the barely sketched fingers that end in a point are rather characteristic of Baron Gérard’s drawings, as in a Group of draped figures at the Musée du Louvre (inv. RF 35 650; see Gérard, Girodet, Gros. L'Atelier de David, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée du Louvre, 2005, no. 25, ill.).
The composition of the present drawing is reminiscent of David’s The distribution of the eagles (Château de Versailles, inv. MV2278). But more broadly, the Distribution also refers to the revival of an ancient theme: the customs of the Roman imperial legions and the presentation of a symbol to the leaders of the armies. This iconographic theme seems to be inspired by classical masterpieces such as The Vision of the Cross by Raphael and Giulio Romano in the Hall of Constantine in the Vatican. This crowd of people with arms raised is found in an emblematic work by Baron Gérard, 10 August 1792. While this painting was never completed, Gérard did produce a number of preparatory drawings, one of which is preserved in the Louvre (inv. 26713; see ibid., no. 5, ill.), and in which the revolutionaries, with their arms stretched upwards, force their way into the National Assembly. Gérard ‘conceived his composition as a plastic response to the one David elaborated for the Oath of the Tennis Court’ (L.-A. Prat, Le Dessin français au XIXe siècle, Paris, 2011, p. 68), the two artists being intimately linked as master and student, as the drawing offered here illustrates.