François-Xavier FABRE (1766-1837). Saint Sebastian.... Lot 138

François-Xavier FABRE (1766-1837). Saint Sebastian. Original canvas and stretcher. Anoté sur le châssis : Fabre. St Sébastien. Height 26 cm - Width 36 cm Provenance: acquired in 1975 on the Toulouse art market by Laure Pellicer, professor of art history and co-editor of the catalog François-Xavier Fabre: de Florence à Montpellier, author of a doctoral thesis on the painter. Bibliography: exhibition catalog "François-Xavier Fabre (1766-1837) de Florence à Montpellier, Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 2008, p.13é, cat. n°34 (repr. p.133). Expert : Cabinet Turquin, Mr. Stéphane Pinta. By the time he painted this canvas at the age of 25, Fabre was well-versed in the nude: he had drawn and painted the male model during his apprenticeship at the Ecole Royale de Paris, then at the Académie de France, and in 1789 had already executed a Saint Sébastien en hauteur (Montpellier, musée Fabre), corresponding to the second Académie réglementaire that he was to send to Paris. In our work, Fabre transcends the academic exercise into a sensitive sketch, integrating the figure of the saint into a Latium landscape, using slate and lilac tones, or the navy blue of the antique sword scabbard. Several paintings by Fabre on the subject of Saint Sebastian are listed in Parisian sales between the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Their descriptions do not entirely correspond to our sketch (Vente A. Didot sale, December 27, 1796; Coutan sale, 1828; Ménagot sale, 1816; Olive merchant sale, Marseille, 1829).