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JEAN-BAPTISTE REGNAULT
Paris 1754 – 1829

Socrate Arrachant Alcibiade du Sein de laVolupté
Oil on Canvas 49 x 72.9 cm (23 1/4 x 25 3/4 in)

Provenance: Painted in 1786, this painting is the initial
Acquired by the Marquis de Saint Marc, circa version of a larger work of the same subject
1786; inherited by his only daughter Mme de la which was exhibited in the Salon of 1791
Roze, and offered for sale by her in Paris, Hotel (Paris, Musée du Louvre). The two paint-
Drouot, 23 February 1859, lot 13 (under the title ings are substantially compositionally the same, save
‘Alcibiade et Aspasie’); unsold, and thence by for an addition at the right of the Louvre version
descent to the present owner.1 which shows two distressed female figures in an
extended view of the palace room (Fig.1). A third
Literature: version, on an even larger scale (385 x 580 cm) was
E. Benezit, Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, produced by the artist in 1810 and acquired by the
Dessinateurs et Graveurs, Paris 1999 (latest edition) state in 1924 (location unknown).
XI, p. 519.
C. Sells, Jean-Baptiste Regnault - Biography and Born in Paris, Regnault’s talent attracted attention
Catalogue Raisonné, unpublished thesis (Courtauld from an early age and in 1768 he was sent to Rome
Institute, London) 1983, p. 345. by M. de Monval under the care of the history
painter Jean Bardin, who was his first teacher. After
Related Works: his return to Paris in 1772 he entered the studio of
Socrate Arrachant Alcibiade du Sein de laVolupté, 1791 Nicolas-Bernard Lépicié. Fours years later he won
(exhibited in the Salon of that year), Paris, Musée the Prix de Rome with Alexander and Diogenes (Paris,
du Louvre. Ecole N. Sup. B.-A.) and returned to Rome. There

1.The Marquis de Saint Marc (1723-1818) was born at the Chateau de Razins, near Bordeaux, and as a very young man distinguished himself as an Ensign
in the Guard, serving at Fontenoy. His injuries sustained there forced him to abandon a military career in favour the arts, and he later earned some renown
as a poet and an operatic composer. A friend of Jean-Honoré Fragonard, from whom he commissioned portraits of his parents, he also amassed a consid-
erable art collection, which included works by Fragonard, Aubry, Boucher, Coypel, Garnier, Renaut, Subleyras, Joseph Vernet,Vien, and Regnault.

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