Jean Michel MOREAU le jeune (Paris, 1741-1814... Lot n° 197

Female figure seated three-quarters holding a reel, perfuming Three pencils (slightly unstuck). Signed and dated lower right 1775. 27 x 20,2 cm In an antique carved and gilded wooden frame. Provenance : CAILLEUX, April 1951, Le dessin français de Watteau à Prud'hon, n°91. Former sale of the Lucien GUIRAUD collection, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me ADER, 14 and 15 June 1956, n°58, reproduced. Exhibition : Eighteenth century, London, Royal Academy of Arts, winter exhibition, 1954-1955, n°393 Related work : Study used by MOREAU for the figure on the right in the composition N'ayez pas peur ma bonne amie, engraved by HELMAN in 1776, for the Seconde suite d'Estampes pour servir à l'histoire des Modes et du Costume en France published in 1777. This suite was reused by Rétif de la BRETONNE for his Monument du Costume Physique et Moral de la fin du Dix-huitième siècle published in 1789 (see E. BOCHER, Catalogue de l'oeuvre de Jean-Michel MOREAU le Jeune, Paris, ed. Damascène Morgand et Charles Fatout, 1882, p,588, 498, 505).