Jules Machard
Sampans, 1839 – Bellevue, 1900
Love and Death
210 x 130 mm – 8 1/4 x 5 1/8 in.
Pen and black ink on paper.
Stamped signature J. Machard (L. 5030) lower right.
This drawing belongs to a set of 85 drawings from the studio of Jules Machard presented by Drawings-online. Read our focus on the artist.
This drawing was executed on a death announcement of the Viscountess of Marcillac dated April 16, 1887.
Towards the end of his career in the 1890s, Jules Machard seemed regularly haunted by the theme of Eros, the personification of Love. He produced a large number of drawings on this subject with various titles: Eros and the Kiss of Death, Eros and Death, Youth and Love, Psyche and Love, the Flight of Eros, the Sleep of Cupid, etc.
At the end of his life, Jules Machard multiplied his sketches of Eros figures, strangely linked to the image of Death. Their melancholic tone and intense gravity give these studies symbolist overtones (cf. Virginie Frelin and Elisabeth Coulon, Jules Machard, le culte de la ligne, exhibition catalogue, 4 April to 15 June 2003, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dole, repr. fig. 10, p. 41).
