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JEAN-PHILIBERT DUMET
? – circa 1814
The Generosity of the Chevalier Bayard
Oil on canvas 38 x 45.7 cm (15 x 18 in)
PROVENANCE: exhib. Paris, Salon 1808, no. 196; with Coatalem,
Private Collection, France Paris 1991. Exhibited Dominique-Vivant Denon,
Private Collection, NewYork “L’oeil de Napoléon”, Paris, Musée du Louvre,
1999- 2000, n° 388. (Fig.1).
EXHIBITED: The Salon painting of 1808 was engraved by E.
Paris, Salon 1814, no. 370 (possibly). Lingée (Fig. 2)
New Orleans, New York and Cincinnati, Romance
and Chivalry, History and Literature reflected in nine- Jean-Philibert Dumet had been recognised as an
teenth century French Painting, 1996-1997, cat. no. artist of some talent when he died at an early
21, fig. 64, pp. 92-93; and p. 174. age sometime around 1814, after having exhib-
ited in three Salons. He studied under Jean-
LITERATURE: Baptiste Regault and certainly in the present work his
C. P. Landon, Annales du Musée et de l’École Moderne neoclassical training is obvious in the somewhat
des Meaux-Arts. Salon de 1808, II , Paris 1808, pp. severe architectural background, the shallow stage-
27-28. like space the figures inhabit and the artist’s strong
C. Gabet, Dictionnaire des artistes de l’école française reliance on profile and dramatic gesture to unite the
au XIXe siècle, Paris, 1831, p. 237. figures. Dumet also relied heavily on Italianate renais-
R. Rosenblum, Transformations in Late Eighteenth sance models for his costume motifs and warm rich
Century Art, Princeton, 1967, p. 58, under note 27. palette, which, like so many of his fellow troubadour
M.-C. Chaudonneret, Le peinture troubadour, Paris, painters, he probably studied directly from examples
1980, p. 35, note 83. in the Musée Napoléon. For example Dumet paints
The Matthiesen Gallery & Stair Sainty Matthiesen Bayard in a costume which is virtually identical to
Inc., Romance & Chivalry : History and Literature that in the so-called Portrait of Bayard by Pietro della
Reflected in Early Nineteenth-Century french Painting, Vecchia (Paris, Musée du Louvre Fig. 3), a work
London and NewYork, 1996-1997, cat. no. 21, fig. which had been in the royal collections since the late
64, pp. 92-93; and p. 174. 18th Century.1
RELATED WORKS: This is a later smaller version of Dumet’s painting of
La generosité du Chevalier Bayard, (large version),
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