Jacques Antoine Vallin Paris circa 1760 - after 1831

Hyppolyte de Livry;
His sale, Paris, February 2 - 5 , 1814, lot 225a, for 420 Francs;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Decembre 1 - 9 , 1814, lot 18, for 371 Francs to Robiquet; 
Comte Daupias de Lisbonne;
His sale, Paris, Galerie George Petit, May 16 , 1892, lot 59; 
Comte  R. de Quélen;
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 9-10, 1931, lot 22; 
Madame la Comtesse de Q;
Her sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, June 9, 1936, 
Sale, Paris, 1967;
With Galerie Pardo, Paris by 1974;
From whom purchased in the early 1980's by the present owner.   

De David à Delacroix, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, November 1974 - February 1975, pp. 633 - 634; 
"Au Palais de Strozzi", Connaissance des Arts, September 1967, p.51, reproduced.

 After having trained under Claude Drevet and Antoine Callet, Jacques Antoine Vallin makes his first appearance at the Salon in 1791, painting in the style of  Claude Joseph Vernet and Joseph-Xavier Bidauld, exhibiting two landscapes respectively numbered and described in the livret as “83 Tempête, Naufrage” and “629 Petit paysage”. Vallin also excelled in portraiture. A pair of very good portraits, dated 1808, where sold in these rooms (January 26, 2006 lot 149 for $144,000) and another portrait, signed and dated 1807, of Dr. Forlenze in front of Mount Vesuvius is in the National Gallery London (inv. NG2288).

However, it is for neoclassical genre paintings, highly finished and usually slightly sensual— such as the present panel—  that he is best known and with which he established his reputation.  It was shown in the Salon of the Year 7 (1799), where the livret describes the subject as “L’amour conduisant deux amans (sic) au temple de l’Hymen.”   The subject is fanciful, clearly inspired by the erotic subject paintings of artists like Fragonard (for example, the Fountain of Love of 1785, now in the Wallace collection).  The not-too-subtle subject of Vallin’s painting is the deflowering of the young girl by her lover, further suggested by the rose bushes and hollyhocks which grow lushly in front of the temple.  It is perhaps the most complex and carefully composed early example of Vallin's “mythological” scenes, and was considered so in the artist’s own lifetime.  The painting was praised, if somewhat fulsomely, by the auctioneer when it was sold in 1814 (see Provenance): “Diverses figures allégorique et autres accessoires ajoutent à la richesse de ce tableau, que nous regardons comme le meilleur que nos ayons vu de cet auteur. Il semble que l’amour ait aidé son pinceau à tracer l’élégance, la grâce et la volupté qui règnent dans son sujet.  M. Vallin a dignement soutenu ici la réputation justement méritée de l’école française moderne [A number of allegorical figures and other accesories add to the richness of this painting, that we can consider as the best that we have ever seen by this painter.  It seems as if Cupid himself has helped his brush to draw the elegance, grace and voluptuousness that defines his subject.  M. Vallin has worthily upheld here the reputation justly merited by the modern French school].”