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Asta Enchères - Maison de ventes aux enchères Corse-Paris
116
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19th century French school, after Jacques-Antoine Vallin (17…
See original version (French)
116
-
19th century French school, after Jacques-Antoine Vallin (17…
See original version (French)
Estimate
€1,000 - €1,500
Voluntary lot
Description
19th century French school, after Jacques-Antoine Vallin (1760-1835)
Venus and Love.
Oil on canvas.
46 x 56 cm.
Presented in a neoclassical frame with a cartouche suggesting an attribution to Pierre-Paul Prudh'on (1758-1823).
Our Vénus et Amour is based on an almost identical composition in the Musée Saint-Léger in Soissons (oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm, inv. 93.7.2761). The landscape background, depicting an Arcadian park, present in the original, is replaced here by a neutral background.
Jacques-Antoine Vallin is part of a long iconographic tradition in which Venus and Love embody the power of desire, a theme treated extensively since the Renaissance by masters such as Titian, Paolo Veronese and François Boucher.
In the Neoclassical period, this mythological subject retained all its appeal, as it allowed us to combine idealised nudity, sensual grace and allegory of love.
Vallin takes up this traditional dialogue between the mother and her winged son, but gives it a more theatrical dimension through the gesture of Venus, who seizes or directs Love's action by asking him to turn his arrows towards the viewer, symbolically integrating him into the scene.
The painting thus no longer simply represents a mythological scene: it becomes a mischievous invitation, in which the audience is designated as the next target of love's strokes.
(minor accidents)
Expert : Pierre-Antoine MARTENET (Quirinal Art)
06 08 17 28 49
[email protected]
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Lot description modified on 05/24/2026 at 10:37 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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