Jean-Victor Bertin

Initially trained under the history painter Gabriel-François Doyen, by 1788 Bertin had become a pupil of Valenciennes, who encouraged him to paint idealized Italianate landscapes in the tradition of Poussin. He travelled to Italy from 1806 to 1808, working on his style and developing great interest in topographical details as well as atmospheric effects. 

This charming painting likely dates between 1794 and 1800, before the artist travels to Italy himself. The subject of Paris and Oenone is taken from Ovid's Heriodes, chapter 5, and depicts a scene from the courtship of the son of King Priam of Troy and the daughter of the river god Cebren. Paris is best known to a modern audience for abducting Helen of Sparta, thus bringing about the Trojan War and the destruction of his father’s kingdom. However, it was just to avoid that catastrophic chain of events, which had been prophesized at his birth, that the infant Paris was exposed and left to die on Mount Ida. He was rescued by a passing shepherd who raised him as his own, and it was while guarding the flocks that Paris met the mountain nymph Oenone. Here Bertin shows Paris carving Oenone's name into a tree. They would marry and have a son, Corythus, but Paris eventually abandons Oenone to return to Troy.

This painting will be included in the forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's work which is being compiled by Damien Dumarquez and Jean-Louis Litron. We are grateful for their assistance with the cataloguing of this lot and for confirming the attribution based on photographs.