Circle of Jean-Baptiste Regnault

Possibly Auguste-Gabriel Godefroy (1728–1814);
Possibly, his sale, Paris, Constantin and Boileau, 2 April 1794, lot 27 (withdrawn);
Possibly, his sale, Paris, H. Delaroche, 14 December 1813, lot 151, for 126 francs (as after M. Regnault).

Jean-Baptiste Regnault solidified his reputation as one of Jacques-Louis David's great rivals during the 1780's with his large history paintings, many of which are now in the collection of the Louvre, Paris. Throughout his career Regnault also painted small cabinet paintings of sensuous subjects, such as the present Danaë. He executed many iterations of this mythological subject, most notably the oval-shaped Head of Danaë that he presented at the Salon of 1795.

A year before that painting was presented at the Salon, a Danaë attributed to Regnault came up for auction in the Auguste-Gabriel Godefroy sale held on 2 April 1794. It was described as "a half-length Danaë, oval-shaped widthwise" but it was withdrawn from the sale. The reason for this was perhaps revealed twenty years later at the sale of Godefroy's estate on 14 December 1813, when the canvas was sold as a "vividly colored, meticulously painted piece after Monsieur Regnault. 23 x 19 p [approx. 62 x 51 cm]." It has been suggested by Mehdi Korchane, to whom we are grateful, that the present canvas could be the picture that belonged to Godefroy.