Jean-Léon Gérôme

Monsieur Ogier, Paris
Max Schweitzer Gallery (acquired from the above in 1970, and sold, Sotheby's, New York, April 20, 2005, lot 6, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale by the present owner

The Dayton Art Institute; The Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Baltimore, The Walters Art Gallery, Jean-Léon Gérôme (1824-1904), November 10, 1972 - May 20, 1973, no. 47
New York, Dahesh Museum of Art; Palm Beach, Society of the Four Arts, Against the Modern: Dagnan-Bouveret and the Rebirth of the Academic Tradition, February 2003 (lent by the Schweitzer Family)

Gerald M. Ackerman, The Life and Work of Jean-Léon Gérôme with a Catalogue raisonné, London, 1986, p. 206-7, no. 111d, illustrated
Gerald M. Ackerman, Jean-Léon Gérôme. Monographie révisée. Catalogue raisonné mis à jour, Paris, 2000, p. 242-3, no. 111.4, illustrated (as Nu de dos/La Reine Rodophe)
Gabriel P. Weisberg, Against the Modern: Dagnan-Bouveret and the Transformation of the Academic Tradition, exh. cat., Dahesh Museum of Art, New York, 2002, p. 33-4, illustrated fig. 25 (as Study for King Candaules)

Lined. Under UV: Pindots of inpainting to her back, her leg, and in the outline of her cloak. An area of restoration in the background around figure's head with a thin line of inpainting around the edge of her hair.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Gérôme's wondrous Néo-grec fantasy, King Candaules, had a well deserved success at the Salon of 1859.  Probably by request of his dealer Goupil, the artist painted a second version, which would be classed as a répétition, because he changed the stance of the queen.  The Salon version is in the Museo de Arte in Ponce, Puerto Rico (fig. 1), the répétition in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.  The present work was either meant to be finished as a single figure, a quotation from a famous painting (which was a common practice at the time), or it may have been cut out of an uncompleted version of King Candaules that had been abandoned when Gérôme either became dissatisfied with the figure's direction or with the planned composition.  

The queen—undressing herself at bedtime—was the focal point in the finished composition.  Aside from its corporeal and technical beauty and the freshness of execution, the unfinished figure is of great interest.  It demonstrates how Gérôme painted a figure and the order in which he approached various components of a composition.  The painter first transferred the outline of a careful drawing of the queen onto a prepared canvas.  He then commenced painting her inside the outline, working from the top to the bottom, building up the shape, the shadows and the color, bringing in turn each section of the body into a near-finished state.  Painting a solid, opaque figure instead of filling in the outline with a series of ever thicker and more detailed layers, was unorthodox (although something similar would be championed in the 1860s by Gérôme's younger contemporary, Édouard Manet).  Once the figure was completed in this opaque manner and the background had been painted in, he would finish it with a top glaze, blending the transitional passages, giving unity to the figureand adjusting its coloring to that of the background.  

There is a similar nude with an unfinished background in the Museum of fine Arts in Boston.  In Gérôme's 1893 painting, Sculpturæ vitam insufflat pictura, also known as Painting Breathes Life Into Scultpure, in the Art Gallery of Ontario, the artist included a small statuette of the figure among the wares on the shelf of a shop in ancient Tanagra (see lot 7).  

We remain grateful to Gerald Ackerman, who provided this catalogue entry in 2005.