Jacques-François AMAND (Gault 1730 - Paris 1769) The... Lot 203

Jacques-François AMAND (Gault 1730 - Paris 1769) The family of Darius Canvas 129 x 161 cm Provenance : - Acquired by King Frederick II of Prussia in 1765; - Collection Dr. Rosemberg, Liège, until January 1971. Exhibition: Salon de 1765, n°166. Bibliography: - D. Diderot, Salon de 1765, Vendôme, 1984, n°166, p.250 ; - Explication des peintures, sculptures et gravures de Messieurs de l'Académie Royale, Paris, 1765, n°166, p.29 ; - P. Seidel, "Friedrich der Grosse als Sammler", in Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussischen Kunstsammlungen, vol. 15, Berlin, 1894, p. 53. If Diderot writes "I have searched long and hard for your family of Darius, without being able to discover it, nor anyone who would have discovered it", this is because the painting had already been acquired by Frederick II, King of Prussia. As the painting was never seen by the public, the attribution seems to have been lost over the years. In 1984, an attribution to Jacques-François Amand was proposed by Jean-François Méjanès, then curator of the Louvre's Department of Graphic Arts. A pupil of Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, Jacques-François Amand won the Prix de Rome in 1756 with his painting "Samson et Dalila" (Mainz, Landesmuseum Mainz, inv. 497). Two years later, the Marquis de Marigny awarded him his Brevet d'Elève, and he arrived in Italy in January 1759, under the direction of Charles-Joseph Natoire. During his stay at the Palazzo Mancini, he produced mainly landscape sketches. Returning to France in 1763, he took part in the Salons of 1765 and 1767. He was admitted to the Académie on September 26, 1767. The following year, Louis XV commissioned three paintings depicting the story of Cupid and Psyche for the trumeaux in the dining room of the Petit Trianon, an unfinished project, probably due to the artist's untimely death.