François Léon Benouville said Léon Benouville
Paris, 1821 – 1859
Study of a man draped standing with his right arm raised to the sky
Sanguine on beige paper.
319 x 232 mm – 12 9/16 x 9 1/8 in.
Stamp of the artist François Léon Benouville (L. 228c) bottom left.
Born in Paris in 1821, François Léon Benouville apprenticed in the studio of François Édouard Picot at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1837. Younger brother of the landscape artist Achille Benouville, he started at the Salon of 1838. After obtaining the great Prix de Rome for painting in 1845, Léon left for his stay at the Villa Medici in the company of his brother, winner of the grand prize for historical landscape the same year. In Italy, Léon devoted himself to history painting, developing a predilection for religious subjects. On his return to France, he obtained public recognition with Saint-François d’Assise, transported dying to Sainte-Marie-des-Anges, blessed the city of Assisi, exhibited at the Salon of 1853 and purchased for the Luxembourg museum ( now in the Musée d’Orsay, Paris). He died prematurely at the age of 38 of typhoid fever.
This study sheet of a standing man could not be directly linked to a work known of the artist. We could, however, compare it to a drawing from A Draped Man Study, Half Legs [1] (fig. 1) executed in black pencil presenting a similar attitude with a variation in the positioning of the left hand. Made in red chalk, the drawing was undoubtedly squared off by the artist with a view to being reported for a larger pictorial composition.
Condition report – Good general condition. Gluing marks at the four corners of the sheet on the back.
[1] Black pencil and white highlights on bis paper; 365 x 245mm; private collection. See. Marie-Madeleine Aubrun, Léon Benouville (1821-1859). Catalog raisonné of the work, Nantes, 1981, p. 315, D. 544.
