drawing
- Museum number
- 1927,1112.1
- Description
-
Self-portrait, study for the painting 'L'Anniversaire' (Hommage à Berlioz, Musée de Grenoble); head and shoulders seen from behind, his right arm raised holding a wreath, smaller study of the head and shoulders in same position above. 1876
Black chalk; on transparent paper
Verso: sketch of a wreath
Black chalk; squared for transfer
- Production date
- 1876
- Dimensions
-
Height: 314 millimetres
-
Width: 245 millimetres
- $Inscriptions
-
- Curator's comments
- This is a preparatory study for Fantin-Latour's 'L'Anniversaire', a composition which paid homage to Berlioz, and to which the artist returned several times. It was originally inspired by Fantin-Latour's experience of listening to Berlioz's symphony 'Romeo and Juliet', which he heard in December 1875. Within ten days, he had made an oil sketch of an allegorical monument dedicated to Berlioz, attended by personifications of virtues and by characters from his compositions. Fantin-Latour himself appears at lower left, in the character of Modern Man, leaving a wreath in the composer's honour.
The oil sketch was followed in 1876 by a lithograph of the same composition, but the BM drawing cannot be directly connected to either of these works. In both sketch and ltihograph, Modern Man is shown looking to the side, rather than with his head bowed as seen in this drawing. Thus, the BM sheet probably postdates them and was made in preparation for the large oil painting of the same subject, which had some differences including the position of Modern Man, and which was exhibited at the Salon of 1876. It is now in the Musée de Grenoble.
SV
- Location
- Not on display
- Exhibition history
-
1996, BM, French Drawings from the BM, (no cat.)
2016-17 Sept-Jan, BM, 'French Portrait Drawings' (no cat)
- Acquisition date
- 1927
- Acquisition notes
- 1927,1112.1 to 3 were selected from the exhibition at the Leicester Galleries of drawings by Fantin from the estate of the artist's widow who died in 1926. Two were paid for and given by Henry Van der Bergh through the NACF. The third was given by the heir to the estate.
- Department
- Prints and Drawings
- Registration number
- 1927,1112.1