Pierre Henri Révoil

The painter Pierre Révoil was one of the foremost representatives of what later came to be known as the Troubadour style, an influential art movement during French Romanticism. Following initial training at the École gratuite de Dessin in Lyon, undertaken alongside his work as a draughtsman for wallpaper designs, Révoil began his studies under Jacques-Louis David in Paris in 1795 together with Auguste de Forbin and François-Marius Granet and his friend Fleury Richard. Deviating from the neo-classical example set by their teacher, the artist friends eschewed themes from ancient mythology and turned their attention instead to the French Middle Ages and the early modern period. Révoil had started to build a collection of objects from these eras when he was undergoing training in Lyon. This collection soon became popular and he made use of it himself from 1807 during his teaching activities at the École des Beaux-Arts in Lyon.

As was the case in similar historical painting movements in other European countries at the time of the Restoration, the painters of the Troubadour style endeavoured to give visual expression in their works to Christian and monarchist ideals of national history. The paintings and drawings of these artists reveal an orientation towards 17th century Dutch painting in both their treatment of colour and light and an extremely refined technical finish, the beau fini (see Eveline Deneer, Between Dou and David: the importance of seventeenth-century Dutch art to troubadour painting in France, 1790–1830, in: Simiolus, vol. 35.2011, 3/4, Apeldoorn 2012, pp. 218–236).

The present drawing depicts Charles V, who has gone into retreat in Saint-Just Abbey just outside the town of Plaisance to meditate and read the Confessions of the Church Father Augustine. Stood in front of an open grave in the cloister garth, the monarch reflects on the futility of earthly existence. The drawing is related to a painting on the same theme executed in 1836 that is now in the Musée Calvet in Avignon (inv. no. D 839.1, see Marie-Claude Chaudonneret, Fleury Richard et Pierre Révoil. La Peinture Troubadour. Paris 1980, no. 43). The work is distinguished by its refined drawing style and wealth of detail. The mild chiaroscuro gives it a very evocative visual succinctness.

EUR 9,500