Pierre-Georges Jeanniot

Sale: Tableaux et dessins par Jeanniot, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, December 5, 1895, probably lot 7 (as Conscrits)
Durand-Ruel, Paris (acquired from the above sale)
Edgar Degas (acquired from the above and sold, his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, March 26-27, 1918, lot 70, as Le conseil de revision)
Pierre-Georges Jeannoit (acquired from the above sale)

Paris, Champ de Mars, 1895

Pinturrichio [Louis Vauxcelles], "Le Caret dans ateliers:  Le Roi Lear; Les Vivants de la collection; Les Manets de la collection," Le Carnet de la Semaine, vol. 4, no. 148, April 7, 1918, p. 8
Charles Saunier, "Mouvement des arts:  Les Grandes Ventes prochaines," Le Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, supplement to the Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1919, pp. 144-6
Ann Dumas, Colta Ives, Susan Alyson Stein and Gary Tinterow, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997, p. 323, 329
Colta Ives, Susan Alyson Stein, and Julie A. Steiner with Ann Dumas, The Private Collection of Edgar Degas:  A Summary Catalogue, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1997, p. 83, no. 744 (Degas inventory no. 136)

Unlined. Minor buckling to the canvas at upper left. Minor scratches to the surface at lower left. Finely patterned craquelure visible at lower left. Under UV: Dots of inpainting at lower left, in the hand of the standing figure right and in the figure to the left of him. Inpainting to address two intersecting diagonal stretches to the right of the military officer.
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.

Untraced since its last appearance at auction in the Degas sale of 1918, Conscrits is both a startlingly advanced example of French realism and a touching testimony of the artists’ lifelong friendship with its original owner, Edgar Degas. 

The son of the wealthy director of the École des Beaux-Arts of Dijon, Jeanniot began his career as an infantry officer (1866 - 1881). His desire to become an artist eventually outweighed the attractions of military life and he boldly resigned despite being offered a promotion to commandant. According to journalist Louis Vauxelles, Jeanniot “was encouraged by Manet and Degas. In (Jeanniot's) youth, while he was still an infantry officer, he took the chance of submitting his work to Manet; the latter told him ‘My friend, you are one of us.' And that simple remark filled him with justifiable pride” (Vauxcelles, p. 8).

Though Jeanniot established his career as a painter of battle scenes and other military subjects at the Salon, he was highly receptive to Impressionism and its practitioners.  Even before leaving the military, Jeanniot had developed a friendship with Edgar Degas, who was a frequent guest at Jeanniot’s estate Dienay près Is-sur-Tille in the Cote d’Or region of Burgundy.  During one of these visits in 1892 with their mutual friend the sculptor Albert Batholome, Jeanniot’s printing press enticed Degas to produce his first landscape monotypes. Jeanniot’s recollections of that visit are among the most valuable contemporary records of Degas’ working methods. 

Dated 1895, Conscrits is a sharp departure from Jeanniot’s military pictures exhibited at the Salon. In a scene he no doubt witnessed  first hand, a group of young men stripped of their clothes are being examined for physical fitness by an officer. All classes are represented in the remarkable still life of a pile of discarded clothes where the clogs of a rural peasant are placed besides the smart shoes of a Parisian. The young men depicted are thin, gawky teenagers whose posture makes their discomfort clear. This honest rendering anticipates the paintings of Picasso of a decade later, when representations of the male form would again take on such realism and vulnerability. Jeanniot’s friend the sculptor  Albert Bartholomé shared his sensitivities and, interestingly, both Jeanniot’s painting and Bartholomé’s model for his Monument aux Morts (bought by the City of Paris and installed at the Père Lachaise Cemetery) featuring a similar group of youths appeared together in the Salon de Champ de Mars of 1895. 

In December 1895, Jeanniot organized a small sale of his works, where Conscrits was bought by Durand-Ruel for Degas for the then significant price of 900 francs. Jeanniot thought highly of the painting and produced a lithograph of the composition in reverse two years later. Degas kept the painting for the remainder of his life, and at the time of the spectacular dispersal of his collection in 1918, the present work was remarked on by several journalists covering the sales. Vauxcelles noted that Jeanniot “had the honor of seeing his best painting, Conscrits, hung in (Degas' apartment)  the Rue Victor Massé. If life had not forced him to ‘create illustrations,’ Jeanniot might have numbered among our strongest realists" (Vauxcelles, p. 8).