Louis-Jean-François LAGRENEE (1725-1805) Lot n° 250

The song - The dove Pair of oval canvases. 81 x 65 cm Provenance: Painted in Rome during the artist's boarding school years at the Académie de France (1750-1754). Anonymous sale, August 10, 1803, n°126 (under the title Two girls seen in bust). HARARI & JOHNS Gallery, London, 1991, n°32. Anonymous sale, Monaco, CHRISTIE'S, 14 June 1996, n°38; hence acquired by the present owner. Exhibition: Paris, Salon of 1755, no. 126, two small paintings, each 2 feet 3 inches high by 2 feet wide, under the same number. One, a young girl holding a music paper; the other, a girl caressing a pigeon; the paintings were exhibited at the same time as the famous Abduction of Déjanire (Paris, Musée du Louvre). Bibliography: M. SANDOZ, Les Lagrenée, I, Louis Lagrenée, Paris 1983, p. 166 (salon), the engravings reproduced pp. 84-85. Salon booklet (1755), n°126 as Two small paintings of 2 feet 3 inches, by 2 feet wide each. L. LAGRENÉE, Carnet 4, n°9. J. ASSÉMAT-TESSANDIER, Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, dit l'Aîné (1725-1805), thesis, University of Geneva, 2020, n°260 P and 261 P. DELOYNES, Observations sur le Salon, tirées du journal de Paris, pièce 76 (Avis aux critiques des tableaux exposés au Salon 1755-1756), p. 16. M. SANDOZ, Les Lagrenée, Paris 1983, tome I, pp. 86 and 166. C. BAILEY, Patriotic taste: collecting modern art in pre-revolutionary Paris, New Haven 2002, p. 257, note 64. Joseph ASSEMAT-TESSANDIER, Louis LAGRENEE dit l'Ainé, Arthéna, 2022, to be published, under n°295 P and 296P. We thank Mr. Joseph ASSEMAT-TESSANDIER for his help in describing these paintings.