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Premium Jean-Jacques BACHELIER (Paris, 1724 - 1806)
Descent from the…
See original version (French)
Jean-Jacques BACHELIER (Paris, 1724 - 1806)
Descent from the…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 38
Description
Jean-Jacques BACHELIER (Paris, 1724 - 1806)
Descent from the Cross
Oil on canvas mounted on panel
Descent from the Cross, oil on canvas laid down on panel, by J.-J. Bachelier
12.00 x 8.85 in.
30.5 x 22.5 cm
Exhibitions : Salon of 1761, n° 66
Bibliography: Mercure de France, October 1761, p. 110
L'Année Littéraire, 1761, tome VI, p. 11
Denis Diderot, Salon de 1761 (consulted online on 15 October 2025)
Hélène Mouradian, Xavier Salmon, Tamara Préaud, Danielle Rice (dir.), Jean-Jacques Bachelier (1724-1806). Peintre du Roi et de Madame de Pompadour, exhibition catalogue, Versailles, Musée Lambinet, 1999, pp. 150-151-152, no. 102 (incorrectly described).
The comments on this grisaille sketch presented at the Salon of 1761 were laudatory. In the Mercure de France, the author praised the talent and eclecticism of the painter, who produced paintings of flowers as well as tapestry cartoons and historical subjects. On the subject of our painting, the paper wrote: "It is not without some astonishment that one passes from most of the paintings by this painter (M. Bachelier) to a grisaille sketch in which he has represented a descent from the Cross. This piece is, without overstating the case, the germ of the greatest parts of Art. A wise and ingenious sequence in the composition, just and striking effects of expression and light, everything that would suffice to constitute a great painter, would be found in the development of this beautiful intention, if it were executed in a painting with the same success as in the sketch". The same year, in L'Année littéraire, art lovers could read: "his sketch of a Descent from the Cross is of great genius, of great effect, and promises an excellent painting". A very accomplished preparatory drawing for our painting is known to us (fig. 1)1.
We would like to thank Madame Hélène Mouradian for kindly confirming the authenticity of this work by means of a visual examination on 6 October 2025 and for her help in writing this note.
1. Former collection of Mathias Polakovits, Ecole nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, no. PM 230.
Jean-Jacques BACHELIER (Paris, 1724 - 1806)
30.5 x 22.5 cm
See original version (French)
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