ANTOINE RIVALZ | Pyrrhus in the Palace of Priam

Jonathan Richardson, Sen. (1665-1745), Londres (L.2183) ; 
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723-1792), Londres (L.2364) ; 
Sir Thomas Lawrence (1769-1830), Londres (L.2445) ; 
Pierre Defer (1798-1870),
Après sa mort, la collection est passé dans la collection de son gendre, Henri Dumesnil (1823-1898) (L.739) ; 
Vente anonyme, Auch, 29 juin 1988, n°27 : « attribué à Eustache le Sueur » ; 
Acquis à cette vente.

Toulouse, musée Paul-Dupuy, Antoine Rivalz 1667-1725. Le Romain de Toulouse, 2004, n°123, repr. pp. 133 (détail), 153 (notice par Jean Penent) ;
Rennes, 2012, n°53 (notice par Valérie Néouze) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

Laid down. Some very light foxing and staining, but overall condition good and strong. Sold unframed.
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For the first thirty-five years of the eighteenth century, Antoine Rivalz was the dominant artistic figure working in Toulouse.  Trained initially under his father, Jean Pierre Rivalz (c.1625-1706), who was the official architect and painter of the city, Rivalz worked briefly in Paris, and then, between 1690 and 1700, he was in Rome, where he played a prominent role in the life of the French Academy, and frequented the circle of artists around Carlo Maratta that included Giacinto Calandrucci, Giuseppe Passeri, and others. Returning to his native city, Rivalz was appointed ‘peintre de l’hôtel de ville de Toulouse’ in 1703, and from then until his death he held a virtual monopoly of the important artistic commissions, both public and private, that the city had to offer. Stylistically, the Adrien drawing can be located during the artist’s Roman period, its broad loose handling and monumental classicism reflecting the variety of influences that Rivalz encountered during his time in the Eternal City.  The subject of this elaborate composition has been debated.  In the 2004 Rivalz exhibition catalogue it was described as The wife of Darius pleading with Alexander for clemency, but Valérie Néouze argues convincingly in her Rennes exhibition catalogue entry that the drawing instead represents Pyrrhus in the palace of Priam, a subject taken from Virgil’s Aeneid, book II, verses 499-502: “I saw Pyrrhus myself, on the threshold, mad with slaughter, and the two sons of Atreus: I saw Hecuba, her hundred women, and Priam at the altars, polluting with blood the flames that he himself had sanctified.” 

The second book of Virgil’s Aeneid was a source to which Rivalz tuned on a number of other occasions, making drawings, all now in Toulouse, of The death of Priam, Cassandra expelled from the temple, The departure of Hector and Andromache, and The Sack of Troy,¹ so this identification of the subject makes perfect sense, not only in terms of the actual elements of the composition, which fit very well, but also as regards Rivalz’s clear interest in this particular part of Virgil’s epic text.   The Adrien drawing is a definitive demonstration of this rare and perhaps underappreciated artist’s considerable intellectual and artistic abilities.

^1. Toulouse, Musée Paul-Dupuy, inv. nos. 92-3-1, 81-3-1, 134, and 81-3-2; Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, inv. Ro 983