id: 150044 accession number: 1980.256 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1980.256 updated: 2024-03-26 01:59:45.796000 Offering to the God Pan, 1855. Paul Delaroche (French, 1797–1856). Oil on fabric; unframed: 25.2 x 20.7 cm (9 15/16 x 8 1/8 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Bequest of Noah L. Butkin 1980.256 title: Offering to the God Pan title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1855 creation date earliest: 1855 creation date latest: 1855 current location: creditline: Bequest of Noah L. Butkin copyright: --- culture: France, 19th century technique: oil on fabric department: Modern European Painting and Sculpture collection: Mod Euro - Painting 1800-1960 type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * Paul Delaroche (French, 1797–1856) - artist Son of the art dealer and collector Grégoire-Hippolyte (d. 1824), Paul Delaroche entered the École des Beaux-Arts in 1816 and studied under landscape painter Louis-Étienne Watelet (1780-1866), himself a student of Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes (1750-1819). After his failure in the Prix de Rome competitions for landscape, newly instituted in 1817, Delaroche switched in 1818 to the studio of history painter Gros (q.v.). Delaroche's first participation in the Salon in 1819 won him praise for his paintings of subjects from the Old and New Testaments. At this time the Bourbon monarchy, reinstalled since 1815, promoted religious painting as the most moral and principled subjects, in large part their reaction to the mythological painting produced during Napoleon's reign, which needed new kinds of art and iconography to express the authority of his upstart political regime. The more radical, independent painter Géricault (1791-1824) liked Delaroche's early work for its similarities to the dramatic color and lighting of Gros. By the late 1820s and early 1830s Delaroche changed course to depict English history subjects, which won him wide fame and considerable prices. The first of these paintings, The Death of Queen Elizabeth of England (Musée du Louvre, Paris), appeared in the Salon of 1827-28, but the painter's greatest success came in the 1831 Salon, where he exhibited Cromwell Gazing into the Coffin of Charles I (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nîmes) and The Children of Edward IV (Musée du Louvre, Paris). The latter painting portrayed the incipient murder of the two royal heirs by usurpers, but it was so popular that the French king, Louis-Philippe, himself an Orléans replacement for the Bourbon monarchs, bought it for 6,000 francs. The painting also inspired playwright Casimir Delavigne's successful drama Les enfants d'Édouard (The Children of Edward), first performed in 1833 and dedicated to Delaroche. Because of the triumph of the 1831 Salon, Delaroche was elected to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1832. In 1833 he was named professor to the École des Beaux-Arts and received a commission for scenes from the life of Mary Magdalene for the church of the Madeleine in Paris. For this latter project he wished to emulate Renaissance frescoes and so went to Italy to study them. Upon his return, he learned that he would share the commission with another artist and withdrew from the project. After the negative criticism of his St. Cecilia at the 1837 Salon, Delaroche did not exhibit again in the Salons. But in that same year he was awarded his most important commission, the decoration of the hemicycle (auditorium) of the École des Beaux-Arts, which took him four years to complete. This work was considered a success by most conservative and moderate critics. With the 1840s portraiture became a substantial part of his production. At the end of his life, he had begun a four-picture series of scenes from the life of the Virgin and completed one (The Virgin Contemplating the Crown of Thorns, 1856). Delaroche's teaching atelier attracted a variety of young artists, such as Couture (q.v.), Gérôme (q.v.), and Millet (q.v.). Delaroche closed the studio in 1843 after the death of one of his students during a hazing prank. --- measurements: Unframed: 25.2 x 20.7 cm (9 15/16 x 8 1/8 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: Signed lower left: Paul DelaRoche 1855 translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1980 opening date: 1981-06-24T04:00:00 Year in Review: 1980. The Cleveland Museum of Art (organizer) (June 24-July 19, 1981). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS --- PROVENANCE Goupil in 1856. Artist's sale, Paris, Drouot, 12-13 June 1857 (lot 6), Paysage peint à Ems. Année 1854, sold for ff 2,000 to Goupil. Vincent van Gogh sale, The Hague, Pulchri Studio, 2-3 April 1889 (lot 42), as dated 1851, for fl 210 to General Hopkinson. Bury Street Gallery, London, ca. 1972-73, whose director Lady Abdy claims to have bought it at sale at Christie's, London, at that time. Sold by her to Shepherd Gallery, New York. Ferrers Gallery, London (according to Ziff 1977). Mr. and Mrs. Noah L. Butkin, Cleveland. Bequeathed to the CMA in 1980. date: footnotes: citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS Argencourt, Louise d', and Roger Diederen. Catalogue of Paintings. Pt. 4. European Paintings of the 19th Century. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1974. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: P. 238-241, Vol. I, no. 85 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.256/1980.256_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.256/1980.256_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1980.256/1980.256_full.tif