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Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard
The Art Institute of Chicago

Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard

Oil on canvasBernard d'Agesci (French, 1756–1829)/c. 1780

Description

This painting depicts a young woman lost in reverie after reading the letters of the ill-fated medieval lovers Heloise and Abelard. The objects on the table beside her—a letter, a sheet of music, and a book of erotic poetry—hint at a life of leisure and a susceptibility to love. In this early picture, Auguste Bernard drew upon history paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Charles Le Brun, as well as Parisian traditions of genre painting and portraiture pioneered by Jean-Baptiste Greuze. Bernard worked in Paris in the early 1780s and studied in Italy for several years. Upon his return to Paris, he found his career frustrated by the French Revolution and the emergent fashion for the more austere Neoclassical style.

Provenance

Louis Gabriel Marquis de Véri-Raionard (died 1785); his estate sale, Paris, December 12, 1785, lot 74; sold to Devouge for 371 livres [acc. to annotated copies of the catalogue in the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, and Getty Research Institute]. David David-Weill, Neuilly-sur-Seine, Paris; sold or consigned to Wildenstein, Paris, 1919; sold by Wildenstein, 1924 [acc. to Joseph Baillio’s letter to Martha Wolff, dated September 23, 1994, in curatorial file]. Albert John Kobler (died 1937), New York; by descent to his wife, Mignon Kobler (died 1942) [acc. to Martha Wolff’s telephone conversation with John Kobler, Albert’s son, May 30, 1995, and Chrisopher Apostle, Sotheby's who confirmed that the picture was consigned to Parke-Bernet by the Kobler estate; see his letter to Martha Wolff, dated October 26, 2004, in curatorial file]; sold Parke-Bernet, New York, April 22, 1948, lot 16 (ill.), as Jean Baptiste Greuze, L’Amoureux Desir; Nicholas de Koenigsberg, New York and Argentina [acc. to Parke-Bernet Galleries’ archive card]. Simon Dickinson Inc., New York, by 1994; sold to the Art Institute, 1994.

Dimensions

81.3 × 64.8 cm (32 × 25 1/2 in.)

Movement / Period

18th Century

Accession No

133859

Official Citations

[The Art Institute of Chicago Official Record][Full Resolution Image]
Curatorial Affinity Stream

Continuing the Universe of Bernard d'Agesci (French, 1756–1829)

18th Century • France • Harmonious Works & Contemporaries

Lady Reading the Letters of Heloise and Abelard by Bernard d'Agesci (French, 1756–1829) (c. 1780) | PublicArk | PublicArk