Treasures From a Family Collection in the Form of Paintings and Drawings by Girodet, Some Making Their Debut at Auction

As we know, the Becquerel Collection originally belonging to the heirs of the artist's niece is now in the Musée Girodet in Montargis and the Louvre. The other Becquerel Collection, owned by the heirs of Girodet's cousin and executor of his estate, the physicist Antoine-César Becquerel, contains some important pieces. As well as The Amazon , a painting acquired by the Becquerels at the Duchesse de Berry’s 1865 sale at Drouot, and now famous thanks to the Girodet retrospective of 2005 and 2006 (Musée du Louvre, Art Institute of Chicago, Metropolitan Museum of Art and Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal), there are several painted sketches, portraits of Girodet's maternal uncle and his cousin, several nudes and a spectacular piece, Le paradis d'Ossian accueille un héros (Ossian Receives a Hero in Paradise) . But two collections of drawings and writings providing essential knowledge of the artist are of particular interest, for one of them complements and adds to the collection of Translations of Anacreon's Ode s acquired by the Louvre in 2005.   Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson , Book II, Sappho, Bion, Moschus , leaves 12 and 1, “Un nuage confus” and “L'amour m'absorbe toute entière” (on Sappho), black chalk, 18.5 x 18.4 cm/7.08 x 7.08 in. and 18 x 18 cm/7.08 x 7.08 in. Estimate: €2,500/3,500 each Painter and Poet As art historian Sylvain Bellenger wrote in the 2005 exhibition catalog, “For most of his life, Girodet had two parallel vocations: two destinies he hoped would become one. He practiced two art forms,…