Collector, Dealer, Connoisseur: The Vision of Richard L. Feigen

Collector, Dealer, Connoisseur: The Vision of Richard L. Feigen

View full screen - View 1 of Lot 52. Caravan Caught in a Storm Along the Shore.

Louis-Gabriel-Eugène Isabey

Caravan Caught in a Storm Along the Shore

Auction Closed

October 18, 03:29 PM GMT

Estimate

50,000 - 70,000 USD

Lot Details

Description

Louis-Gabriel-Eugène Isabey

Paris 1803-1886 Montévrain

Caravan Caught in a Storm Along the Shore


oil on canvas

canvas: 23 1/2 by 30 1/4 in.; 59.6 by 76.8 cm.

framed: 32 7/8 by 38 3/4 in.; 83.5 by 98.4 cm.

Baron Alfred Millen de Grandmaison, Paris (by 1963);
Private collection, France;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Ferri, 22 June 2005, lot 27 (as "Eugène Isabey and Eugène Delacroix");
There acquired by Richard L. Feigen.

P. Miquel, Eugène Isabey, la marine de XIXe siècle, editions de la Martinelle, Maurs-La-Joie 1980, p. 199, cat. no. 1080 (as La Caravane surprise par la tempete, diligence et danger).
Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Delacroix, ses maîtres, ses amies, ses élèves, 17 May - 30 September 1963, no. 326 (as La Caravane surprise par la tempete).

Eugène Isabey was born on 22 July 1803 to the well-known Napoleonic painter Jean-Baptiste Isabey, who encouraged his son to pursue a career as an artist rather than becoming a sailor. Celebrated as one of the preeminent marine painters of the Romantic era in France, Eugène Isabey had a wide ranging career spanning geographically from his travels to England and Algiers to his an appointment as the official court painter to Louis-Philippe in France. Throughout his career, Isabey found inspiration in both the Old Masters and his contemporaries. On a trip to England in 1821, he discovered the free, organic watercolor technique of Richard Parkes Bonington that would later influence Isabey's future compositions.


Isabey explored the idea of shipwrecks and storms throughout his career. Unlike his painting titled The Wreck from 1854 now in the Detroit Institute of Arts, which is more finished and employs a lighter color palette, the present composition reads as more intense and dynamic in nature.1 Here the artist references contemporary philosophy in the representation of the figures and he manages to provide a sense of timelessness by placing emphasis on the struggle of the individual.


His choice of subject, man's powerlessness against the forces of nature, reflects one of the central themes of French Romanticism explored by many contemporary artists, such as Eugène Delacroix, Théodore Géricault and Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson (see lot 53). Previous examinations of this painting have led some to consider the possibility of a second hand, a practice not uncommon for artists of the period, who frequented each other’s studios and sometimes collaborated. Such was the case with Isabey and Delacroix, who certainly knew each other, and while suggestions have been made that Delacroix may have assisted Isabey in the present painting, it seems more likely that Delacroix’s style influenced that of Isabey. 


1. Inv. no. 07.14, oil on canvas, 38 by 30 in. https://www.dia.org/art/collection/object/wreck-49084.