Galatea (Study for the Head of Galatea)

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 46 x 38.5 cm (18.1 x 15.2 in)

This is a sketch for the artist's Salon painting of 1819, Pygmalion and Galatea, recently acquired and cleaned by the Musée Louvre, Paris.

Provenance: Collection Anne-Louis Girodet-Trioson (inventory after death 11 April 1825); Collection Rosine Becquerel-Despreaux, niece and only heiress of the artist (mentioned in the inventory made at the chateau de Bourgoin by M. Salouzes, Notary, the home of her husband, March 4th, 1835, no. 32); Collection Edmond Filleul (mentioned in his own inventory, 1850); by descent to the heirs of the Peyriague family; Private Collection, France, 1991.

Literature: Perpignon, Catalogue des tableaux, esquisses, dessins et croquis de M. Girodet-Trioson, peintre d'histoire, membre de l'Institut... de divers ouvrages faits dans son ecole, Paris, 1825, no. 53 ; Catalogue to the Exhibition of Anne-Louis Girodet 1767 – 1824, by Sylvain Bellenger, Louvre, Paris, October 2005, p. 465, ill

Related works: Girodet's Pygmalion and Galatea exhibited at the Salon of 1819, then in the collection of the Duke of Luynes at the Chateau of Dampierre, and now in the collection of the Louvre, Paris.

Exhibited: Girodet 1767 - 1824, Musée de Montargis, 1967, no. 45, reproduced, figure 45.

In his last years Girodet was largely unmoved by the stylistic and technical revolutions of the Restoration era, paying scant regard to new artistic conventions. While he produced a handful of drawings of "troubadour" subjects and wrote admiringly of the refined manner of the painters specializing in this genre, he never attempted to work in this style himself. Considering himself outside the Parisian artistic world, he long felt that he had been unfairly victimized by the Napoleonic artistic establishment. Since he had refused to compromise with the Napoleonic dictatorship, it is hardly surprising that he did not endear himself to Vivant Denon (director of the Napoleonic national Museum). Following the Restoration, Girodet sent to the Salon of 1814 almost all his major works, hoping that at last he might attain the recognition he craved.[1] His decision to virtually abandon his career as a history painter, however, seems to have led the Crown to prefer to advance his rivals, Gerard and Gros, who continued to present major works at successive Salons.[2]

Girodet's Pygmalion and Galatea is the last major work of the artist's career and, in both manner of execution and subject, seems to look back a decade earlier. Exhibited at the Salon of 1819 and now hanging in the collection of the Duke of Luynes at the Chateau of Dampierre, it represents the artist's last attempt to reaffirm his reputation as a history painter. As told by Ovid,[3] Pygmalion was a Cypriot king who, finding none worthy of his love, carved an ivory statue of his ideal woman with which he promptly fell in love. In answer to his prayers the image was brought to life by Aphrodite and Pygmalion then married her; in later adaptations of this story the statue is given a name, Galatea. It is a strange tale of obsession and one can understand why it satisfied Girodet's own paranoia.

Girodet represents the moment when the king reaches up to help the statue-woman step down from her plinth. Despite the retardataire nature of the finished composition, the study for the head of Galatea exhibited here demonstrates a degree of refinement equal to the best of his work. The delicately painted head is certainly a portrait, the sitter's downcast eyes and modest expression capture most effectively the moment when the beautiful statue is suffused with life; according to Levitine this particularly appealed to the King when the artist presented him with the finished work. The thinly painted, scumbled background, in providing a contrast to the more highly-worked face, gives a sense of volume which contributes to the concept of the animation of a statue. The artist made some minor changes in the finished painting, notably to the hair of the model.

NOTES

[1] Among the exhibited pictures which attracted particular public notice were the portraits of the ardent royalists Chateaubriand and Seze, who had both conspired against Napoleon, which had in one case been hung in an obscure position in the 1808 Salon and, in the other, rejected altogether.

[2] Although Louis XVIII conferred upon Girodet the considerable honor of membership in the Order of Saint Michael, France's oldest chivalric institution, and he was elected to the Institute, these tokens were in recognition of his past standing and not his current achievements. It was Louis XVIII's policy to overlook past loyalty to the Napoleonic regime and the king held few grudges (even those who joined Napoleon during the hundred days were eventually pardoned). He therefore conferred these same honors on both Gerard and Gros, who were also created Barons and given high ranks in the Legion of Honor, further adding to Girodet's sense of grievance.

[3] Metamorphoses, 10.243-297.