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TITLE:
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Saint Jerome
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CATEGORY:
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Paintings
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MATERIALS:
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Oil on paper, laid down on canvas
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MARKINGS:
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Signed Eug. Delacroix at the upper right
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SIZE:
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23.7 x 26.1 cm (9 3/8 x 10 1/4 in.) [sheet]
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REGION:
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French
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STYLE:
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Romanticism (ca. 1800s-1880s)
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PRICE*:
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Contact Gallery for Price
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DESCRIPTION:
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This powerful oil sketch is related to Delacroix’s hexagonal canvas of Theology (Saint Jerome), one of the four pendentive paintings installed by the artist beneath the central cupola of the Chambre des Pairs, or Peer’s Library, of the Palais de Luxembourg in Paris. Delacroix received the commission in September 1840, and work on the decoration of the cupola and its pendentives, as well as the half-dome above the apse of the library, was undertaken between 1841 and 1846. The cupola was decorated with depictions of Dante, Virgil, Homer among other poets and historical figures, while the pendentives below were devoted to single figures, painted in monochrome to imitate bronze reliefs, representing the themes of Philosophy, Eloquence, Poetry and Theology; the last of these was personified by the figure of Saint Jerome in the desert. The four pendentive canvases - the only part of the entire decorative scheme to be painted in the studio - were installed in the Peer’s Library in December 1846, at the completion of the entire project.
According to Delacroix’s notes to his Journal, this oil sketch was given by the artist to the author and critic Théophile Gautier (1811-1872), probably some time in the early 1840’s. It has been known to scholars only from a written description of it in the Gautier sale catalogue of 1873. Last recorded on the Parisian art market in 1877, the present sheet has only recently been rediscovered.
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PROVENANCE:
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Given by the artist in c.1843 to Théophile Gautier, Paris; His posthumous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 14-16 January 1873, lot 23, bt. Sichel for 1,000 francs; Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 19 February 1877, lot 16 (withdrawn); Pierre Miquel, Paris.
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