Thomas Couture Senlis 1815 - 1879 Villiers-le-Bel

Estimate

2,500 - 3,500 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Thomas Couture
recto: study of a dead soldierverso: the lower half of a study of a male nude
black chalk on light blue paper (recto and verso)
numbered in black chalk, verso: 24

Provenance

Purchased, New York, Sotheby's, 23 January 2001, lot 366

Catalogue Note

Couture's painting 1815, which was destroyed during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870, was intended as a denunciation of the corruption of the Napoleonic era. Judging from the oil sketch which records the original composition, this drawing of a dead soldier appears to be a study for a figure in the foreground.¹

1. A. Boime, Thomas Couture and the Eclectic Vision, New Haven 1980, IX.90