Depicting an aged and bearded man, his eyes closed and his head resting on one hand, the present painting is exemplary of Girodet’s consummate attention to detail. The high quality of this work, and especially the meticulously precise treatment of the hair and beard, and the folds of flesh and fabric, owe much to Jacques-Louis David, as well as being typical of Girodet, especially when the artist was working on a small scale.
The present canvas is very probably the one listed in Girodet’s post-mortem studio sale, held in Paris on 11 April 1825, matching the description of an “Etude d’après un vieillard endormi; cette étude est très-terminée jusque dans ses moindres détails. Ainsi que les deux précédentes elle servait de modèle dans l’atelier des élèves. T. h. 17 p. l. 14 p.” (Study of an old man sleeping, this study is very finished down to the small details like the two previous ones, it was used as a model in the students’ studio). The work, as noted, was listed as measuring 17 x 15 pouces (inches) which roughly translates as forty-six by forty centimetres, thus correlating well with the present canvas. Annotated copies of the catalogue show that it was sold for 160 francs to the dealer Alexis-Nicolas Pérignon, who had in fact authored the catalogue for the sale. A valuation of the items in the same sale (see Literature, above) lists the same work as “Une tête de vieillard appuyée sur sa main prisée Trente francs, ci” (An old man's head resting on his hand prized Thirty francs).
As mentioned in Pérignon’s catalogue, the highly finished work was used as a model by the pupils in Girodet’s workshop, along with other canvases also included in the same studio sale. After accepting his first students on the strength of the reputation he had made with his famous Endymion, presented at the Salon in 1793, Girodet helmed a fashionable Paris atelier following his return from Italy in 1795. It is, however, generally recognized that he was not an especially successful teacher: his originality and individuality, crucial to his own work, were simply not teachable. Instead, his pupils concentrated on imitating his refined academicism, exaggerating the smooth finish and highly descriptive appearance of his canvases. Polished studies like the present canvas were essential models in training his students to paint in this sophisticated mode.
Likewise fundamental to Girodet’s academic training of his pupils were his drawings, especially those he had made between 1790 and 1795, which took as their subjects works from classical antiquity and by the masters of the Renaissance. The Album de principes de dessins (Musée Girodet, Montargis), an especially important tool in this regard, and contains in particular many drawings after Michelangelo, who Girodet ardently admired—during his three-month stay in Rome, Girodet visited the Sistine Chapel every day, making drawings.
The influence of Michelangelo is felt across Girodet’s oeuvre, and, for example, the elderly sitter in the present canvas might be seen as echoing Michelangelo’s aged prophets in the Sistine Chapel (fig. 1). Yet it is perhaps even more intriguing to consider the possibility that the present canvas was conceived as a loose portrait of Michelangelo. The appearance of the elderly man here is not dissimilar to the physiognomy of the Renaissance artist as evidenced in his later portraits. The contemplative nature of the elderly man’s pose, together with the sleeve rolled up in workmanlike fashion, would moreover be a fitting allusion to the dual labours of mind and hand that are the essence of an artist’s practice. Girodet would later use the sculptor’s late self-portrait in his Deposition (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo, Florence) as a model for the monk in the Funeral of Atala (1808, Musée du Louvre, Paris); moreover, a drawing by Girodet depicting Michelangelo is very close to the present study, though by contrast the figure is shown in profile, and floating ethereally in the heavenly realms (fig. 2).
At the same time, elderly men are a standard feature found in history painting, in which they typically personify important moral values including melancholy, wisdom, determination and contemplation—in the last instance, often of mortality. Thus whether or not the present study was conceived as a portrait of the artist who had so profoundly inspired Girodet, the subject was an apt one for his pupils to study in preparation for the realisation of history paintings of their own devising.
The attribution to Girodet has been confirmed verbally by Sidonie Lemeux-Fraitot, who has seen the work in person and plans to include the work in her upcoming catalogue raisonné of works by Anne-Louis Girodet, published by Arthena.
Fig. 1. Michelangelo, Jeremiah, fresco, Sistine Chapel, Vatican.
Fig. 2. Anne-Louis Girodet, Michelangelo, graphite, black and white chalk on paper, 190 x 150 mm, private collection.
