Lot n° 214
Estimation :
5000 - 8000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 7 470EUR
Alfred Nicolas Martin (1868-1947)
The Coustou and Houdon rooms at the Louvre Museum around 1900
Oil on canvas. Signed lower left
65 x 81 cm.
Our painting is part of a series of five canvases executed at the beginning of the 20th century, and which is now partly in the Louvre Museum.
The subject of this series is the so-called "modern" sculpture rooms of the National Museum. The Salle Coustou and the Salle Houdon visible in our painting followed the Salle Goujon, Salle Puget and Salle Coysevox, installed in the Galerie d'Angoulême, in the west wing of the Cour Carrée, between the Pavillon de l'Horloge and the Pavillon de Beauvais. The architecture that is clearly recognizable on our canvas is that of Lemercier, redesigned by Fontaine under the Empire. This western part of the courtyard of the Louvre, renamed the Sully Pavilion, now houses the Oriental Antiquities Department.
Of this series of paintings, La Salle Pierre Puget and La Salle Jean Goujon are now part of the collections of the Musée du Louvre (under inventory numbers INV 20245 and INV 20246).
The artist also exhibited at the Salon in 1910 and 1912 the Salle des Caryatides and the Salle du Tibre.
Our painting completes this panorama and adds a fifth decisive element. It was exhibited at the Grand Palais during the 1924 Salon.
This vibrant and luminous work allows us to easily reconstruct what the sculpture rooms of the Louvre were like more than a century ago. The subtle cameos, the energetic and precise drawing allows us to clearly identify a large number of unforgettable pieces of French art.
From left to right, we recognize: the Venus coming out of the bath by Allegrain, the Neptune calming the angry waves by Lambert Sigismond Adam, the Love ready to throw a stroke by Tassaert (now on deposit at the Malmaison), the Annibal by Sébastien Slodtz, the Sleeping Shepherd by Vassé, the Diana by Houdon and finally the Bacchante with two children by Pajou
This painting allows us to freeze a moment in the history of taste and museography. It marks a time when the Louvre finally brought together the bulk of its collections in this field, and organized them according to a notion that was still new at the time: that of masterpieces.
With this eloquent reunion, it is above all the pantheon of French sculptors of the eighteenth century that resurfaces, and with them the pleasure of the eye and of knowledge.
Exhibition:
Grand Palais, Paris, Salon of 1924, in the catalog under n°131
Comparative bibliography:
I Compin and A. Roquebert, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du musée du Louvre et du musée d'Orsay. t. IV. 1986, p. 73.
https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010065414 https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010065434
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