MARAT (Jean-Paul). - RAFFET (Auguste). Original... Lot 49

[MARAT (Jean-Paul)]. - RAFFET (Auguste). Original drawing. November 9, 1845. graphite, 13 x 11 cm on paper mounted in window on folio. THE "PEOPLE'S FRIEND" IS SHOWN HOLDING A PISTOL. This is probably an allusion to an anecdote that was close to Auguste Raffet's heart. Indeed, the artist's uncle, General Nicolas Raffet, had a direct confrontation with Jean-Paul Marat: on May 27, 1793, when an armed mob had invaded the Convention, Nicolas Raffet, then in command, was struggling to clear the building's corridors. Jean-Paul Marat came to him, threatened him with a pistol and ordered him to enforce the intruders' right to petition: when the soldier firmly refused, he had him arrested by the petitioners. It was this drawing that served as the model for the copperplate engraving by Félicie Fournier for the gallery of Portraits-vignettes that Auguste Raffet published in 1848 with Furne et Cie POUR ACCOMPAGNER L'HISTOIRE DES GIRONDINS by ALPHONSE DE LAMARTINE, which had appeared the previous year with the same publisher. Provenance: "VENTE RAFFET 1911" (stamp; Catalogue des peintures, aquarelles, dessins lithographies de A. Raffet [...] forming the estate of the late M. Aug. Raffet fils, Paris, Drouot, Loÿs Delteil, expert for drawings, March 15, 1911, no. 117). - Arthur MEYER (Mes livres, mes dessins, mes autographes, Paris, s.n., 1921, no. 123, drawings, 3; Paris, Drouot, Francisque Lefrançois and Noël Charavay experts, June 3-6, 1924, no. 129, drawings, 3). - Banker Christian LAZARD (Paris, Drouot, May 19 1967, no. 62). - Robert GERARD (Paris, Drouot, June 19-20 1996, no. 226).