Théodore Géricault

Possibly, Parmentier (comissaire-priseur), Paris, Notice de tableaux, esquisses, dessins, études diverses, estampes, livres à figures, etc., appartenant à la succession de feu Géricault, peintre d'histoire, [...] en la salle vitrée de l'Hôtel de Bullion, rue J.-J. Rousseau, n^o 3, November 3, 1824, part of lot 20 or lot 23 (as Copies faites d'après différents maîtres)
Eugène Delacroix (and sold, Catalogue de la vente qui aura lieu par suite du décès de Eugène Delacroix, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 22-27, 1864, lot 228 (as Le Sommeil des Apôtres, d'après le Titien))
Isambert (acquired at the above sale according to an inscription in the catalogue held by la Bibliothèque centrale des musées nationaux, Paris)
Boittelle (and sold; his sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January 10-11, 1867, lot 90, as Les Apôtres au Jardin des Oliviers)
Dr. Émile Isambert (and sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, March 9, 1877, lot 36 (as Parabole du Diable semant l'ivraie pendant le sommeil des travailleurs))
Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 5, 1912, lot 12 (as Parabole du Diable semant l'ivraie pendant le sommeil des travailleurs)
Mme. Alice Pierrotet Javal, Paris
Confiscated from the above September 14, 1942 and restituted February 21, 1947 (ERR reference Pierro 4)
André Dunoyer de Segonzac (1884-1974), Paris
Private Collection, Paris
Sale: Sotheby's, London, June 23, 1981, lot 9, illustrated (as Le Sommeil des Paysans)
Richard Feigen, New York (acquired at the above sale)
Salander O'Reilly Galleries, New York (circa 1987)
Private Collection, Taos, New Mexico
Sale: Christie's, New York, April 19, 2005, lot 177, illustrated (painted circa 1812-13,  authenticated by Lorenz Eitner)
Lori Bookstein Fine Art, New York
Acquired from the above in 1997

New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., Théodore Géricault (1791-1824). An exhibition of Paintings, Drawings, Watercolours, Prints and Sculpture, April-May 1987, no. 3 (as Le Sommeil des Apôtres)
New York, Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, Inc., XIX Century Selections, no. 4 (Le Sommeil des Apôtres)

Philippe Burty, "Vente Eugène Delacroix," La Chronique des arts et de la curiosité, no. 54, February 28, 1864, p. 67
Pierre Dax, "Chronique [vente de la collection Boittelle," L'Artiste, v. II, 5^th edition, February 15, 1867, p. 120
Charles Clément, "Catalogue de l'œuvre de Géricault [peintures]," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. XXIII, September 1, 1867, p. 284, no. 87  (as Les Apôtres au jardin des oliviers)
Charles Clément, "Catalogue de l'œuvre de Géricault (suite et fin)," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. XXIII,  October 1, 1867, p. 352, no. 172  (as Le Sommeil des Apôtres)
Charles Clément, Géricault. Étude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre du maître, Paris, Didier, 1868, p. 299, no. 93 (as Les Apôtres au jardin des oliviers)
Charles Clément, Géricault. Étude biographique et critique avec le catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre du maître, troisième édition augmentée d'un supplément, Paris, Didier, 1879, p. 299, no. 93  (as Les Apôtres au jardin des oliviers)
Charles Clement, Gericault: Étude Biographique et Critique (reprint of 1879 edition with introduction and supplement by Lorenz Eitner), Paris, 1973, p. 459, no. 180
Philippe Grunchec,  "L'inventaire posthume de Théodore Géricault (1791-1824), Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'art français, 1976-1978, pp. 401, 402, illustratred fig. 11 (as Le diable semant l'ivraie pendant la sommeil des paysans)
Philippe Grunchec, Tout l'œuvre peint de Géricault,  Paris, 1978, p. 86, illustrated p. 87, no. 7 (as Le Sommeil des paysans, d'après un maître non identifié)
Germain Bazin, Théodore Gericault, 1987, vol. II, pp. 290-1, 421, no. 295, illustrated (Author unknown)
Philippe Grunchec, Tout l'Oeuvre Peint de Gericault, (revised and supplemented from the 1978 edition) Paris, 1991, p. 86, no. 7 (as Le Sommeil des paysans, d'après un maître non identifié)

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work on panel has been quite recently and well restored and should be hung as is. The top half of the composition shows almost no restoration. In some of the cracking in the tree trunk in the center left there are retouches and in the lower right some other restoration has been applied in the lighter colored path. The remainder of the retouches can be seen under ultraviolet light in the reclining figure with the red loin cloth and to a lesser degree in the reclining figure in the center right. The restorations most likely address some cracking or pentimenti, which is to be expected from a picture of this scale and period.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

The workshops of Carle Vernet and Pierre Guérin provided the young Géricault with his earliest formalized artistic training.  However, the time spent with these older, established artists was short lived and Géricault instead opted for a less formalized path of training.  His early career coincided with Napoleon's master plan to fill the Louvre with the rich spoils of his military campaigns and negotiated treaties.   Great Old Master paintings, taken from Italy, Spain, Austria and Flanders, took up residence in the newly inaugurated "Musée Napoléon" in Paris.  It was here that Géricault found true inspiration in the works of such artists as Titian, Rubens, Rembrandt and Velasquez.   These masters from earlier centuries became Géricault's new "teachers"; he copied their paintings for an extended six year period between 1810-1815.  As Lorenz Eitner commented, "copying, far from stifling his [Géricault's] individuality, gave him the courage to indulge a very personal love of heavy pigment and sensuous brushwork" (Lorenz Eitner, " Introduction," Théodore Géricault, exh. cat., Salander-O'Reilly Galleries, New York, 1987).  In fact, in 1815, when the allies took back their looted pictures after Napoleon's second abdication, Géricault was one of the French artists who protested in the courtyard of the Louvre as the paintings were hauled away (Eitner, Géricault: His Life and Work, London, 1983, p. 60).  The inventory of Gericault's studio following his death counted more than sixty copies after the Old Masters, and most likely included Le Sommeil des Paysans.   When it was offered in the sale of Géricault's studio in 1824 as part of a group lot of "copies faites d'après différents maîtres," the purchaser was another young artist, whose inspiration also derived from copying the Old Masters – Eugène Delacroix.    

Charles Clément was the earliest Géricault biographer to identify the painting.  He inadvertently listed it twice, as number 93 (Les Apôtres au Jardin des Oliviers, having been sold in the Vente Boittelle in January 1867), and again as number 180 (Le Sommeil des Apôtres, when it was included in Delacroix's studio sale in 1864 and was identified as a copy after Titian).  The connection to Titian was subsequently challenged when the painting passed through the sale of the Isambert collection in 1877, and again at a Paris auction in 1912,  where each time it was suggested that Géricault had copied a painting by Tintoretto  depicting The Parable of the Wheat and the Tares, a biblical scene taken from Matthew XII:23.   However, due to the absence of a concrete prototype Philippe Grunchec recommended that the title should be more generic and suggested Sleeping Peasants, after an unidentified  master.  When the painting was offered at auction in 1981, the accompanying catalogue note stated, "It does not appear to resemble any recorded work by either artist [Titian or Tintoretto], however, and is almost certainly an original composition loosely inspired by the Venetian School."  German Bazin, the only scholar to doubt an attribution to Géricault, questioned the identity of the subject and even the Delacroix provenance.   When the painting was offered for sale in 2005, it was authenticated by the late Lorenz Eitner, who dated it between 1811 and 1815.  Most recently, the painting was examined by Bruno Chenique in Paris.  He speculates that because the emphasis is on the landscape that perhaps Géricault was copying a Flemish original. 

Unfortunately, due to the loss of the earlier painting that Géricault copied, any direct comparison between it and our painting is impossible.  However, we are able to compare Le Sommeil des paysans to a copy Géricault painted after Titian's Death of Peter Martyr (fig. 1).  As noted by Bruno Chenique, the two copies are stylistically very similar.  They share a similar palette of warm earth tones, leaf-laden trees silhouetted against cloudy blue skies and an interest in showing a well-formed, yet spontaneous, treatment of the musculature and drapery of the male figures.

The copies, like the present work, made by the young Géricault after the paintings in the "Musée Napoleon" revealed an artist who inherently understood the lessons of the Old Masters, but who also had the self assurance to process these earlier masterpieces and transform them into paintings uniquely his own.  This is no more aptly stated than by Lorenz Eitner, who wrote: "Géricault did not disguise his handwriting when testing himself against the Masters"  (Eitner, 1983, p. 58).  Even in these early copies, the mastery that would come to characterize the greatest paintings of Géricault's short career is clearly demonstrated.