Ary Scheffer

Collection Ary Scheffer (1849-1858);

Acquired by maison Goupil, Paris, 15 October 1858;

Where acquired by Gambart, 27 April 1859;

Agnew, 1860;

Where acquired by Samuel Mendel;

Collection Samuel Mendel;

Collection Albert Grant;

His sale, Christie’s, London, 27 April 1877, lot 97;

Where acquired by Agnew;

Where acquired by E. C. Potter, 14 May 1877;

Collection E. C. Potter;

His sale, Christie’s, London, 22 March 1884, lot 76;

Where acquired by Agnew;

Where acquired by Mrs Bloomfield Moor, 15 May 1884;

Sale Bloomfield, Christie’s, London, 5 May 1900, lot 31;

Where acquired by Lester;

Anonymous sale, Christie’s, London, 23 November 1923, lot 45;

Where acquired byTwigg;

Probably, collection Elink Schuurman;

Sale Elink Schuurman and others, Dordrecht (Mak), 22-23 November 1938, lot 41.

London, Royal Manchester, Art Treasures exhibition;

Manchester, Institution, 1878, no. 23 (as belonging to M. E. C. Potter);

Dordrechts Museum, Waanders Uitgevers, Zwolle, Ary Scheffer, Gevierd Romanticus, 1995-96, no. 70 (as belonging to a private collection since 1938);

Dordrechts Museum, on loan since 2017.

L. Ewals, Ary Scheffer, sa vie, son œuvre, Nimègue 1987, as dated 1849, engraving no. 20, repr.;

L’atelier d’Ary Scheffer, exh. cat., Paris, musée de la vie romantique, 1991, mentioned p. 44.

Hebe, the daughter of Zeus and Hera, was the goddess of youth in Greek mythology. She was also the cupbearer of the gods of Olympus, tasked with pouring for them the nectar and ambrosia that allowed them to enjoy eternal youth and immortality.

The partially unclothed goddess stands leaning against a cloud, holding the symbols of her duties, a chalice and a ewer. Her soft, youthful face almost touches the face of the eagle – Zeus, who leans towards her, protecting her with his wing. The palette consists of clear colours, enlivened by notes of red and reddish brown in the hair and drapery.

After trying out several styles, Scheffer embraced classicism in the 1840s, as evidenced by Hebe, in which the influence of Ingres is clearly apparent. The mythological subject – rare in his oeuvre – and the goddess’s contrapposto pose are inspired by ancient Greek sculpture and by painting of the early nineteenth century. The same contrapposto can be found in the Andromeda by Ingres (1819: Detroit Institute of Arts, inv. 70.170) and The source, also by Ingres (1820–1856: Musée d’Orsay, Paris, inv. RF 219) whose very tall format is also echoed in our Hebe.      

Technically, Scheffer breaks away from the purely academic finish, while retaining a classical idiom which he softens and idealizes, modelling Hebe’s body with a gentle touch.

The painting dates to 1849, shortly after the exile of King Louis-Philippe and his family, who had favoured the artist with their trust and contributed to his fame with numerous commissions. Scheffer was at that time much admired for his religious and historical subjects, as well as his sentimental genre scenes. The period of uncertainty that followed the change of regime unsettled Scheffer, who had an anxious and tormented character. Perhaps it was this that prompted him to paint Hebe, an unexpected mythological subject, with the aim of attracting a clientele that admired idealized and sensual female nudes.