Ludus Pro Patria

Medium: Oil On Canvas
Size: 94 x 280 cm
Signed: Signed lower-left: Puvis de Chavannes 

In the original frame, chosen for the painting by the artist

Provenance: Lazare Weiller; by descent.

Exhibitions: (select): Paris, Durand-Ruel, 1887, no. 35 as Pro Patria Ludus; Paris, Durand-Ruel, "Exposition de tableaux, esquisses & dessins de Puvis de Chavannes," June–July 1899, as Ludus pro Patria; Paris, Hotel Drouot, November 1901, no. 38 as La Famille.

Literature: (select) A. Michel, "Exposition de M. Puvis de Chavannes," Gazette des beaux-arts, 1888; J. Buisson, "Puvis de Chavannes, Souvenirs Intimes," Gazette des beaux-arts, 1899; Marius Vachon, Puvis de Chavannes,1900; Camille Mauclair, Puvis de Chavannes, Paris, 1928; The Toledo Museum of Art,  European Paintings, Toledo, 1976); Louise d'Argencourt, Puvis de Chavannes, 1824–1898, Exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris and Ottawa, 1977; Aimée Brown Price, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes, Exh. cat., Van Gogh Museum, Amsterdam, 1994; From Puvis de Chavannes to Matisse and Picasso: Toward Modern Art, Exh. cat. Palazzo Grassi, Venice, 2002; Louise d'Argencourt, Puvis de Chavannes: Une voie singulière au siècle de l'Impressionnisme, Exh. cat., Musée de Picardie. Amiens, 2005; Aimée Brown Price,  Pierre Puvis de Chavannes: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Painted Work; Yale University Press, New Haven, 2010, Volume II, catalogue no. 289.

Related works: (select) The Family, the smaller, right portion of this work measuring 94 x 125 cm, separated by the artist  and now in the Toledo Museum of Art, USA; Ludus Pro Patria in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens (450 x 1750 cm); Ludus Pro Patria, reduced version (33.4 x 134.5 cm) Metropolitan Museum, New York; Ludus Pro Patria, (representing the middle group of figures only, 113.5 x 198 cm) Walters, Baltimore (formerly called the Target);  Full compositional study, c. 1879 (62 x 251 cm) Musée du Louvre, Paris; Cartoon for the Amiens painting, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels; numerous drawings in the Louvre, Paris, Amiens Museum, Petit Palais, Paris, and the Princeton Art Museum, Princeton, New Jersey.

Puvis de Chavannes scholars knew the whereabouts of this painting only from the written records until its rediscovery in 2010.  In those records it was described incorrectly by Durand-Ruel in 1887as an esquisse for the large-scale Ludus Pro Patria in Amiens. The canvas was separated into two parts by the artist sometime between 1887 and 1899; the smaller right-hand section, which Puvis signed after detaching it from the remaining canvas twice the size, was titled La Famille in a 1901 sale.  Today, this canvas is in the collection of the Toledo Museum of Art, USA. Together, these paintings celebrate ‘Patria’, Latin for homeland, the concept of which is represented in the painting as a functional, peaceful but strong community. Work, defence and family are the components identified by Aimée Brown Price in the idealised vision portrayed by Puvis.