FRANÇOIS LEMOYNE | Study for the figure of Hercules

Collection Jules Alexandre Duval Le Camus (1814 – 1878), Paris (L. 1441) ; 
Acquis à Paris, commerce d'art, 1970.

Rennes, 2012, n°54 (notice par Nicolas Milovanovic) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

J.-L. Bordeaux, François Le Moyne (1688-1737) and his Generation, Paris, 1984, p.143, sous n°9 et fig.136 ; 
J.F. Méjanès, Arte de las Academias Francia y Mexico, siglos XVII-XIX, cat. exp., Mexico City, Antiguo Colegio de San Ildefonso, 1999, p. 120, repr.

Laid down on two sheets of paper and then subsequently hinge mounted to a modern mount. There is an old horizontal hanging line running horizontally across the centre of the sheet, which is integral to the paper. There is a small light brown stain to the lower centre of the sheet and another to the left leg. The black chalk medium remains in excellent condition throughout this powerful sheet. Sold unframed.
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This robust yet elegant drawing, executed in a combination of black chalk heightened with white chalk, is a highly engaging and powerful preparatory study for the figure of Hercules in François Lemoyne’s 1718 ‘morceau de réception’ for the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture: Hercules clubbing Cacus, now in the collection of the école nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (Fig.1).

Lemoyne had been accepted into the Academy in late 1716 with his portrayal of The Adoration of the Magi¹ (now lost) and was subsequently instructed by the Director of the Academy, Antoine Coypel (see lots 42 and 54) to paint Hercules clubbing Cacus as his Reception Piece. Given six months to complete the painting, Lemoyne experienced certain difficulties in arranging the composition, leading to significant delays, which resulted in the picture not being submitted for over a year.

The care that Lemoyne took to perfect the pose and expressions of the key figures is strikingly evident from this and the other surviving preparatory studies for the figure of Hercules, which together show the artist’s painstaking development of the main protagonist of the picture.

Alongside the Adrien drawing there are two other known preparatory drawings for Hercules, as well as an exquisite, highly finished compositional drawing² which depicts the dramatic and violent scene in its entirety.  The first of these studies, in the Louvre, appears to be the preliminary academy study from which the Adrien drawing was subsequently derived.³  The pose of the figure in the Louvre sheet is, as one might expect, highly reminiscent of the final painted version, but there are a number of key differences, such as the positioning of Hercules’ hands and perhaps most notably his leaner physique, particularly in comparison with the robust build of the figure in the Adrien sheet. Another fundamental difference between the Louvre academy study and the Adrien drawing is the manner in which Hercules’ facial features are depicted. These differences can, however, be understood thanks to the existence of another drawing by Lemoyne, in the collection of the Staatliche Museen, Berlin, a detailed head study of Hercules.⁴ This fascinating sheet appears, as Nicolas Milovanovic suggested in his Rennes exhibition catalogue entry, to be the link between the Louvre academy study and the Adrien drawing, in which the artist manages to invigorate the clean-shaven, somewhat generic face of the Academy model with the brutality and rugged appearance of the demi-god, as seen in the Adrien sheet.

Further preparatory drawings for other figures in the composition also survive, including a highly energetic red chalk study for the peasant woman on the far left of the composition⁵, as well as two studies for the seated River God,⁶ both of them still in private ownership.

Along with the highly impressive compositional drawing in the Louvre, the present work is one of the most important and impressive surviving sheets relating to this key project in Lemoyne’s early career, a work that was vital in setting him up as a highly successful artist for decades to come.

^1. Bordeaux, Op. cit., p. 71, no. 5

^2. Ibid., p. 143, no. 7, fig. 133; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 30513

^3. Ibid., p. 143, no. 9, fig. 135; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 30552

^4. Ibid., p. 143, no. 8, fig. 134; Berlin, Kupferstichkabinett, inv. no. 14839

^5. Ibid., p. 144, no. 10, fig. 137; Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 34874

^6. Ibid., p. 144, nos. 11-12, figs. 138-139