A scene in an artist's studio lit from an attic window (left). Four connoisseurs are grouped round a large canvas on an easel: an Apollo with a sheaf of arrows, head turned in profile to the left. The model is a tall black man in the pose of the Apollo but with very different features, the left hand holding the stick of a broom which supports the pose. A fifth connoisseur reaches up to alter the position of the model's head. The artist stands beside his canvas facing the invaders, the left hand, holding palette and brushes, rests on the canvas; he sucks his mahl-stick with a gloomy scowl. On the extreme right a cat sits in a cradle, behind which an alarmed little boy hides. The artist's wife, with an infant in her arms, faces the fire with her back to the visitors whose unwelcome intrusion is apparent. Behind is a bed with drawn curtains. Three casts from the antique decorate the bare room. The model's coat and hat lie on the ground (right). On the far left in the foreground a dog urinates against two canvases leaning against the wall
Alternative Title:
Assemblée des connisseurs
Description:
Titles in English and French etched below image. and Imperfect; sheet trimmed within plate mark with loss of all text from bottom edge. Missing text supplied from impression in the British Museum.
"The "Bedroom of the heart of Voltaire" in Ferney: a bedroom with alcove bed on the far right, portraits hung on the walls, and to the left a pyramid-shaped altar in an alcove; ... with small bust of Voltaire in the lower margin."--British Museum online catalogue, description of the original engraving
Description:
Title from text below image., Plate from: Le Livre; revue du monde littéraire. Paris, A. Quantin [etc.], v. 6 (10 October 1885)., Printer's statement in lower left; periodical name and number in lower right: Le Livre, VIe. année., Photoengraved reproduction of a 1781 print by François Denis Née after a drawing by Gaspard Duché de Vancy; see British Museum online catalogue, registration no.: 1870,1008.910., and Text reproduced from original engraving: "Dessiné par Duché, d'après nature au Chateau de Ferney en 1781" beneath lower left corner of image; "Gravé par Neé" beneath lower right corner of image.
Publisher:
Imp. A. Quantin
Subject (Geographic):
France and Ferney-Voltaire.
Subject (Name):
Voltaire, 1694-1778 and Château de Ferney (Ferney-Voltaire, France)
Subject (Topic):
Homes and haunts, Interiors, Bedrooms, Canopy beds, and Portraits
A man with lecherous look on his face, his tongue between his teeth and with a large grin, reaches his hand between the curtains of a canopy bed, his other hand raised. Behind him leaning against a coat tossed on a chair is a bed warmer. On the dresser behind him is a bust of a woman with a feathered headdress. On the small chest at the foot of the bed is a basket with a lid
Description:
Title etched below image., Series title and number from impression in Les Musèes de la Ville de Paris., Printmaker's name etched in image, at bottom of bureau., Date based on Plate 15, which was entered in the 'Bibliographie de France' for 29 March 1817., Dimensions from the impression in Les Musèes de la Ville de Paris., "The series 'Musée Grotesque' consists of at least 65 plates, made over a long period between March 1814 and August 1829. They seem all to have been designed, and in some cases etched, by Godissart de Cari, and all are placed under his name in the British Museum. The first four plates of the series, unlike the others, do not carry the heading 'Musée Grotesque' but rather 'Les Nouvellistes' and are numbered 1 to 4."--British Museum online catalogue., and Sheet trimmed to image: 21 x 13.7 cm.
Publisher:
Chez Martinet, Libre., rue du Coq, no. 15
Subject (Topic):
Bedrooms, Canopy beds, Headdresses, Lust, and Sculpture
