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EUGÈNE-SAMUEL-AUGUSTE FROMENTIN | Study for L'Incendie
Estimate
35,000 - 50,000 EUR
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Description
- Eugène-Samuel-Auguste Fromentin
- Study for L'Incendie
- Monogrammed and numbered lower right E.F. n°69 ; Bears the posthumous sale stamp lower right (L. 957)
- Oil on canvas
- 85,5 x 103,5 cm ; 33 5/8 by 40 3/4 in.
Provenance
Studio of the artist (his sale: Paris, Hôtel Drouot, January 30-February 3, 1877)
By descent though the artist's family (sale: Paris, Christie's sale, Paris, June 22, 2006, no. 146, illustrated.
By descent though the artist's family (sale: Paris, Christie's sale, Paris, June 22, 2006, no. 146, illustrated.
Literature
J. Thompson and B. Wright, Les Orientalistes, volume 6 : Eugène Fromentin 1820-1876, Visions d'Algérie et d'Egypte, Paris 2008, p.283, illustrated
Catalogue Note
This painting is a sketch for one of Fromentin's most ambitious compositions, that was never actually finished, and that is known from drawings and sketches of which the present painting is one of the most important, after the sketch in the collection of the National Gallery of Ireland. The subject is taken from one of the tragic moments of the French conquest of Algeria, the massacre of Nekmaria before the taking of Laghouat in 1852. It shows the dead bodies of two women, Fatma and M'riem, who were violently killed during the siege. The present sketch shows Fromentin's mastery of the academic tradition and his will to create grand modern history painting. The sketches for l'Incendie are considered as the most sensual compositions in the painter's entire œuvre.