Jean-Léon GÉRÔME (Vesoul, 1824 - Paris, 1904) Socrates... Lot 113

Jean-Léon GÉRÔME (Vesoul, 1824 - Paris, 1904) Socrates coming to fetch Alcibiades from Aspasia Original canvas Signed lower left: "JL. Gérôme". Preceded by a partially erased dedication: "to ? 20,6 x 32,6 cm (Tension bands) Provenance: Jules-Pierre-Michel Dieterle (1811-1889), French painter, draftsman, sculptor, architect, and theater designer. Exhibition: Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904). Peintre, sculpteur et graveur, Vesoul, Musée Georges Garret, 1981, n 129, p. 113, reproduced. Bibliography : G. M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme, Monographie révisée, Catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Courbevoie, 2000, no. 131.2, p. 246. At the 1861 Salon, Gérôme exhibited several neo-Greek subjects: the portrait of Rachel as Melpomene, Phryne in front of the Aeroport; The Two Augurs and Socrates Fetching Alcibiades from Aspasia (no. 1249 in the booklet; private collection, USA). It is the first thought of this painting that we present. Our sketch underlines the orgiastic atmosphere that reigns at the courtesan's home, in the middle of a luxuriant garden where many scantily clad maids are hurrying to the sound of the lyre. In a second sketch (Indiana, Snite Museum), Gérôme returned to more restraint, perhaps to avoid the harsh criticism that had greeted his Greek Interior in 1850. It was only in the final version that Gérôme decided to use Alcibiades' dog, famous for having cost his master 7,000 drachmas, who cut off his tail on a whim, to make a statement.