- 79
Jean François Léonor Mérimée
Description
- Jean François Léonor Mérimée
- Erigone and Bacchus
- oil on canvas
Exhibited
Condition
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."
Catalogue Note
Mérimée entered the Ecole de l'Academie Royale in 1778 and remained there until 1783, studying with both Gabriel-François Doyen and François-André Vincent. After receiving the second prize in the Prix de Rome in 1787 and third prize in 1788, he traveled to Rome where he stayed until 1793. Upon returning to France, he began to concentrate more on the study of chemistry and the restoration of paintings and, in 1830, published the results of his studies in this area in his treatise De la peinture à l'huile ou des procédés matériels employés dan ce genre de peinture depuis Van Eyck jusqu'à nos jours. Though primarily a history and portrait painter, Mérimée also painted mythological subjects such as the present work. Another of his mythological works, depicting Vertumnus and Pomona (1796), is in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier.
A painting exhibited as no. 362 in the 1795 Paris Salon by Mérimée is described as Une Bacchante jouant avec un petit Satyre and is probably identifiable with the present lot.