Jean-Georges Vibert

Goupil et Cie., Paris
Artist's Studio; Sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 25-26, 1902, lot 52
M. Knoedler and Co., New York (in 1904)
John Levy Galleries, New York
Lillia Babbitt Hyde
Sale: Parke-Bernet, New York, October 16, 1941, lot 71
Sale: Parke-Bernet, New York, May 22-25, 1946, lot 780
Private Collection, Kentucky (in 1979)
Acquired from the above by the present owner

Paris, Salon, 1892, no. 1658
Paris, Exposition Universelle, no. 1872
Atlanta, High Museum of Art; Chrysler Museum of Norfolk; Raleigh, North Carolina Museum of Art; Sarasota, John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, French Salon Paintings from Southern Collections, January-October 1983, no. 66
Lexington, University of Kentucky Art Museum, Nineteenth Century French Art from the Wenneker Collection, January 19-March 16, 1986
Lexington, Unviersity of Kentucky Art Museum, August 27-October 22, 1989
Taft Museum, Cincinnati; Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., Arnot Art Museum, Elmira, New York, Cavaliers and Cardinals, Nineteenth Century French Anecdotal Paintings, June 25-January 17, 1993, no. 54

Gustave Larroument, Le Salon de 1892, Paris, p. 38
Emile Bergerat, Le Salon de 1892, Paris, 1892, p. 87
A. Tausseret-Radel, "La peinture au Salon de Champ-Elysées," L'Artiste, Paris, p. 332
C. Yriarte, Figaro Salon, 1892, illustrated as frontispiece
Figaro illustré, no. 27, June 1892, pp. xxi, xxiii, illustrated
G. Vapereau, Dictionnaire Universel des Contemporains, Paris, 1893, p. 1561
Jean-Georges Vibert, "The Sick Doctor," The Century Magazine, 1896, pp. 944-47
Exposition Universelle de 1900: Catalogue officiel illustré de l'exposition décennale, 1889-1900, Paris, 1902, vol. I, p. 30
Jean-Georges Vibert, La Comédie en Peinture, Paris, vol. I, pp. 30-40, illustrated

While best remembered as a painter, Vibert was also a playwright.  Married to an actress at the Comédie Française, he not only produced many plays but wrote and performed in a number of works himself in the 1870s.  Molière's satire of doctors, Le malade imaginaire (The Hypochondriac), provided the model for both Vibert's short play and artwork, both titled Le Médecin malade.  Vibert used the basic plot and names of Molière's characters: Argan, the hypochondriac, and Diaforius, the doctor, who finish a huge lobster dinner followed by tea. The next, climactic scene is illustrated in the present work as Diaforius collapses into a chair, clutching his chest, feet splayed; nauseous, he is convinced he has been poisoned by accidentally drinking the powerful medicine he has prescribed for his patient (Eric M. Zafran, p.120). Here Vibert's brilliance with comic irony is revealed as Argan leaps from his chair to splash water across his "healer's" face. In a further twist it is then revealed in the play's next scene that there was never any chance of overdose, because Argan's clever servant routinely exchanged the prescribed quack medicines for water.  Using clever visual clues and highly rendered details, Vibert turns expected roles topsy-turvy: patient becomes the doctor and discovers the chicanery of "healing science."  Perhaps the final irony is that, despite his gentle mockery of “advancements” in science, Vibert took advantage of developments in photography in order to capture and reproduce the highly realistic details of sumptuous interiors, costumes, and amusing compositions found in celebrated works such as Le Médecin Malade (Zafran, pp. 21-22).