- 130
Attributed to Jean-Baptiste Deshays Colleville near Rouen 1729 - 1765 Paris
Estimate
4,000 - 6,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Jean-Baptiste Deshays
- a group of men pulling a corpse from a mass grave
- pen and brown ink and brown and grey wash, over black chalk and stumping, heightened with white
Provenance
Purchased from Lucien Goldschmidt, Inc., New York, in 1980 (as French School, 2nd half of the 18th Century)
Catalogue Note
An attribution to Deshays may be tentatively suggested for this work, both for its reminiscences of Boucher and for its dramatic composition and lighting. The subject is obscure and probably is not, similar though it seems, Tobit Burying the Dead. A work with that title by Deshays was in the Basan sale in 17981 and a grisaille drawing attributed to him was sold in these Rooms, 22 October 1984, lot 530.
1. Marc Sandoz, Jean-Baptiste Deshays, Paris 1977, p. 103, no. 159