Jean Guillaume MOITTE (b. Paris 1746 -1810) - Lot 19

Jean Guillaume MOITTE (b. Paris 1746 -1810) Saul sacrificing to idols before the battle of Geboë or Guilboa Drawing in gray ink wash and brown ink, pen in brown ink, white, gray-indigo and green gouache, retouched with black stone, pasted in full on framed laid paper. The reverse of the mount bears a late 19th-century collector's or exhibition label, no. 327. Drawing dimensions : Height 41.7 cm. Width : 53.5 cm. Filet lining dimensions: Height : 46 cm. Width: 58 cm. Carved and gilded wood frame stamped CHERIN (Jean Chérin, Paris, d. in 1760) Height 41.7 cm. Width: 53.5 cm. Provenance: France, private collection Note : An Old Testament episode and history of the kings of Israel. The royal anointing conferred on the young Saul by the prophet Samuel encouraged the young king to free his people from the Philistines and subdue the Amalekites. After his many victories, he ensured the union of the Hebrews, but the Philistines decided to gather a large army to exterminate the Hebrew people. The prophet Samuel had advised the young king to wait and offer a sacrifice to Jehovah before the battle. Impatient and worried by the prophet's delay, Saul hastened the battle and, accompanied by a sibyl, officiated at the sacrifice himself in order to conjure up Samuel's shadow. The king was to perish in this last battle, along with his sons, punished for not having obeyed Samuel's advice and for having disobeyed God. He was replaced by David. J.-G. Moitte chose to depict Saul offering a sacrifice in Samuel's absence, in order to exhort his troops to prepare for battle on the left of the composition. This large drawing dates from the 1770s/1775s, as does Death of Senechus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which uses a similar, unusual technique combining wash, gouache and bronze powder to give the drawing a painterly appearance. Ours, which combines green, grey-indigo and white gouache applied in thick strokes and is of exceptional dimensions, far larger than those of the New York drawing, bears witness to Moitte's ambitions to enter the Académie, and for this reason, during the 1770s/1780s, he chose violent subjects illustrating the tragic destiny of heroes from ancient Greece or the Old Testament, as also attested by a sheet in the Musée de Besançon, inv. D 2892, Polydore begging Achilles to spare him (280 x 418 mm). *Metropolitan Museum of art, inv. 2001.453 222 x 300 mm cf figure.