This highly finished oil sketch served as the modello for a portrait now in the Musée Girodet at Montargis. When that lifesize canvas was sold at the posthumous auction of Girodet’s studio, it was catalogued as Portrait of an Indian and dated 1807. The costume, however, is Ottoman, not Indian. Girodet was one of the most gifted painters to emerge from the studio of Jacques-Louis David. Returning to Paris in 1795 after his stay at the French Academy in Rome, Girodet developed a style marked by literary preciosity, imaginary pictorial effects, and exotic subjects and settings.
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Title:Study for "Portrait of an Indian"
Artist:Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson (French, Montargis 1767–1824 Paris)
Date:ca. 1807
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:16 x 12 7/8 in. (40.6 x 32.7 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:Purchase, Gift of Joanne Toor Cummings, by exchange, 1997
Object Number:1997.371
[Thierry Mercier-Hubert Duchemin-Frédérick Chanoit, Paris, until 1995]; private collection (from 1995); [Galerie Mercier & Duchemin, Paris, until 1997; sold to The Met]
Paris. Thierry Mercier-Hubert Duchemin-Frédérick Chanoit. "Tableaux et dessins des dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles," May 16–June 17, 1995, no. 7.
Paris. Musée du Louvre. "Girodet: 1767–1824," September 22, 2005–January 2, 2006, no. 83 (as "Indian [sketch]").
Art Institute of Chicago. "Girodet: 1767–1824," February 11–April 30, 2006, no. 83.
New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Girodet: Romantic Rebel," May 24–August 27, 2006, no. 83.
Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "Girodet: 1767–1824," October 12, 2006–January 21, 2007, no. 83.
Tableaux et dessins des dix-huitième et dix-neuvième siècles. Exh. cat., Thierry Mercier-Hubert Duchemin-Frédérick Chanoit. Paris, 1995, p. 18, no. 7, ill. p. 19 and in color on cover, mistakenly identifies this picture, rather than the larger version in the Musée Girodet, Montargis, as the work included in Girodet's studio sale of 1825 and listed by Coupin in 1829; notes that the figure represented is actually a Persian.
Gary Tinterow. "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 1997–1998." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 56 (Fall 1998), p. 40, ill. (color), notes that it was the Montargis picture that was included in Girodet's studio sale of 1825; comments that the richly-colored costume is Ottoman, not Indian.
"La Chronique des arts: principales acquisitions des musées en 1998." Gazette des beaux-arts, 6th ser., 133 (March 1999), p. 60, no. 224, ill.
Sylvain Bellenger in Sylvain Bellenger. Girodet, 1767–1824. Exh. cat., Musée du Louvre. Paris, 2006, pp. 384, 387, no. 83, ill. (color).
This is the oil sketch for a much larger painting in the Musée Girodet, Montargis (oil on canvas, 145 x 113 cm), which was included in Girodet's studio sale (Paris, April 11, 1825, no. 2) and is listed in P. A. Coupin's Oeuvres posthumes de Girodet-Trioson, Paris, 1829, p. lxvj, where it is dated 1807.
Anne Louis Girodet-Trioson (French, Montargis 1767–1824 Paris)
1816
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