Gustave Moreau

Allard et Noël

Collection Mme Esnault-Pelterie, (and sold: Nouveau Drouot, Paris, March 19, 1983, lot 19)

Acquired by the present owner circa 1985

Pierre-Louise Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Monographie et Nouveau catalogue de l'oeuvre achevé, Paris-Courbevoie, 1998, p. 409, no. 424, illustrated, and in color, p. 249

The following condition report was kindly provided by Alvarez Fine Art Services, Inc: This work on paper is in good structural condition without tears or losses. The painting is executed on paper stretched over a bowed paper pulp board, its extreme edges wrapped over the sides of its support and glued to the verso. Though formerly flat, over time, and likely due to humidity, the support has expanded causing the paper to grow taught like a drum, and also creating separation between the paper at its support. The fact that the paper does not touch the acidic board explains why, after all these years, the paper appears fairly clean. Visually, though the medium has remained faithfully close to its original hue, the paper appears slightly oxidized from proximity to acidic materials. Minor areas of desiccated pigment and associated cupping are evident in the blue pigment used to depict the robe on the main subject. In this case, the thickness of the pigment applied caused an accumulation of glue binders which, after years of drying, tend to loose adhesion and separate from their support. While this is visible, the circumstances are not precarious. And though it could be corrected through consolidation, such intervention could be considered more an aesthetic call than a structural one. Otherwise, the condition of this work shall be deemed good, without need of any further corrective intervention.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

One of the most inventive and influential painters of his generation, Moreau's impact on the development of art through the twentieth century is significant. Few artists share his ability to seek out, hone and dispense such a variety of references and pictorial traditions while taking complete ownership of and responsibility for the outcome: exquisite, mystical and iconic pastiches that are enduring and relevant more than a century later.

Moreau had a distinct creative process that was driven by an insatiable appetite for source material. He was drawn to the exotic, and although he never left Europe in his lifetime he was entranced by representations of faraway places that he saw in the Moghul miniatures at the Musée du Louvre. He sought out these references at other exhibitions of Asian and Middle Eastern art that came to Paris, like the Exposition des beaux-arts de l'Extrême-Orient at the Palais de l'industrie in 1873-74, and incessantly made sketches to document what he saw. He developed preferences and gravitated towards Eastern examples: Persian, Indian and Egyptian, as well as medieval images, while completely ignoring the rococo filigree that was fashionable during the second empire. (Geneviève Lacambre, Gustave Moreau between Epic and Dream, Chicago, 1999 pp 15-16).

Despite his near total embrace and exoticization of an idea of the East, Moreau maintained a reverence for European pictorial traditions and narratives. References to mythological and biblical stories are often overtly expressed. In other instances, such as the present work, Moreau codes his narrative in an esoteric language that is achieved through the synthesis of disparate ideas and aesthetic cues in order to create an artistic and formal vocabulary that is immediately recognizable as his.

Moreau felt that his art had a kind of spiritual responsibility to the viewer. He aspired to be a thinking artist charged with the mission of leading "the materialist youth, by means of visual spectacle, to understand the good" (as quoted in Lacambre, p. 35).

Les Épreuves is a tremendous example of both Moreau's process and his motivations. The title itself, which translates to "Trials", implies the classical story-arc of the hero's quest. Here, our protagonist appears to be a forlorn poet, being either tormented or inspired by a group of apparitions. One of these creatures, winged and bare-breasted, straddling the chest of the figure, subtly alludes to one of Moreau's most iconic works, Oedipus and the Sphinx (fig. 1). Unlike those of Oedipus, the trials that confront Moreau's poet-hero are intentionally ambiguous and provide an entrance for the viewer to ponder and get lost in the visual sensuality of the work. Further, the kimono-like tunic, richly-patterned in hues of lapis lazuli, combined with the feminizing contrapposto of the body, purposefully lends an androgynous quality to the figure. This was not uncommon for Moreau, and in describing a figure in another work, Tyrtaeus, writes that "this figure must be completely draped and very feminine. It is almost a woman, who alone amidst this eager host can understand the self-sacrifice and suffering of the poet." (Pierre Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Fribourg-Oxford, 1977, p.165, quoting the large black notebook from the Musée Gustave Moreau)