Lot n° 106
Estimation :
4000 - 5000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 4 550EUR
GIRODET-TRIOSON Anne-Louis (1767-1824).
7 L.A. including 4 L.A.S. "Girodet-Trioson" or "G.T." (minutes or copies), Paris 1813-1814; 10 pages and a half in-fol. or in-4 (one on a death announcement addressed to him, and one on the back of an address sheet in his name).
Complaints, supplications and recommendations, notably about the commission he had received for portraits of Napoleon. 28 November 1813, [to François-Nicolas MOLLIEN, Minister of the Treasury]. Charged by the Minister of Justice in January 1812 with the execution of 36 portraits of S.M. "en pied, et en grand costume" for the Imperial Courts, Girodet-Trioson had to make considerable advances for supplies and collaborators, and received only 40,000 francs of the 160,000 promised. A further advance of 50,000 francs, payable in five instalments, was promised by the minister, but the painter received nothing... However, the régie des Domaines "pursues with rigour" the collection of his debt for the purchase of the land on which his studio was built, with the sole aim of "acquiring there some new titles to the public esteem and the benevolent protection of H.M."... December 17, 1813, to Stanislas de GIRARDIN, prefect of the department [of Seine-Inférieure]. His pupil M. LE SAGE, native of Rouen, is "called to join the army", while he helps Girodet in the execution of a ministerial order of portraits of the Emperor, and deals exclusively with the one intended for the court of Rouen. "If you could [...] grant an extension of six months to Mr Le Sage, I would be sure to see this work finished in a hurry and this young and interesting artist would take advantage of it to make further progress. [...] Mr Denon, director of the Museum, shares the esteem and the interest that I have for the talents and the person of Mr le Sage"... January 15, 1814, to the Grand Judge Mathieu MOLÉ, reminding him of the circumstances of the commission of portraits of Napoleon by his predecessor, the duke of Massa. To date he has received only 50 000 francs, and he asks the Grand Judge to order him as much: the sum "would not yet fill me with the fees and expenses proportional to the 26 portraits I have already finished. 8 others are sketched out and will only be finished after your authorization"... 20 May 1814, [to the chancellor Charles-Henri DAMBRAY, minister of Justice]. Girodet exposes his titles of former boarder of Louis XVI at the Academy of France in Rome, and makes the history of the commission of 36 portraits of the Emperor, accepted to "fill the expenses of a workshop whose building had become indispensable to me", and which is the cause of his ruin: "the government which has just collapsed" still owes him some 90 000 francs for 28 portraits completed before its fall. He would like now "to retrace the image most dear to the French" for the royal courts; "I have always been inviolably attached to the holy cause of our legitimate sovereigns"... July 30, 1814, to H.R.H. Monsieur, brother of the King, lieutenant-general of the Kingdom [the count of Artois, future CHARLES X]. His adoptive father, Benoît-François Trioson, solicits the grace to be attached as a physician to the person of the prince, and to the Corps of the Swiss and Grisons, and he himself, having recalled his titles and his successes, begs H.R.H., "since she intends to form a second house, to include him in it by granting him the honourable title of her first painter, a position previously occupied by the late Mr Doyen, member and professor of the former Royal Academy of painting, who died a few years ago in St Petersburg"... September 3, 1814, to Chancellor DAMBRAY. The former government still owes him 58 000 francs: "I received from the Minister of Justice 2 orders amounting together to the sum of 30 thousand francs, the amount of which I have not received"; debtor of his collaborators, "I can only pay them if Your Excellency deigns to renew these orders to me [...]. The 27 completed portraits are at his disposal"... [1814, to Mgr Étienne-Hubert de CAMBACÉRÈS, cardinal-archbishop of Rouen]. Recommendation of M. POISSON, author of a Christ at the tomb "which announces the happiest and rarest talents": "he was inspired by the masterpieces of the great painters of Italy who would not disavow him as a pupil and whose emulation he will become one day if the force of circumstances does not tear him away from his cherished profession, the only one in which he can reside and serve gloriously his sovereign and his country"... May His Eminence deign to accept the homage of the painting offered to the "leader of religion in his native city"...
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