COLLECTION NAME:
The AMICA Library
Record
AMICA ID:
DMA_.1985.R.23
AMICA Library Year:
2003
Object Type:
Drawings and Watercolors
Creator Name:
Daumier, Honoré
Creator Dates/Places:
French, 1808 - 1879
Creator Name-CRT:
Honoré Daumier
Title:
An Actor
View:
Full View
Creation Date:
Unknown
Creation Start Date:
1808
Creation End Date:
1879
Materials and Techniques:
Pen, ink, wash, paper, laid
Dimensions:
Sheet dimensions: 9 3/4 x 6 5/8 in. (24.76 x 16.83 cm.) Framed dimensions: 12 x 10 x 2in. (30.48 x 25.4 x 5.08cm.)
AMICA Contributor:
Dallas Museum of Art
Owner Location:
Dallas, Texas, USA
ID Number:
1985.R.23
Credit Line:
Dallas Museum of Art, The Wendy and Emery Reves Collection
Context:
Although the authenticity of this drawing has never been questioned, there is considerable dispute about the identity of the man in both this watercolor and the oil painting to which it has a direct relationship. The painting, now in the Musée Courbet in the painter's hometown of Ornans, has been catalogued as a portrait of Courbet's maternal grandfather, M Oudot, and dated to 1843 on the basis of its style (Fernier 1977, no. 35). Robert Fernier noted that the painting was itself the basis for the figure on the far left of Courbet's largest composition, 'The Burial at Ornans' (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), of 1849. Fernier had no knowledge of the Reves drawing, which represents the artist's father, Régis Courbet, according to one of its owners, Courbet's great-nephew Paul Reverdy.Simply on the basis of physiognomy, Reverdy's identification seems correct. Yet, when one accepts the painting and the drawing as portraits of the artist's father, issues of chronology come into question. Fernier dates another portrait of Régis Courbet to 1844 (no. 50), when the painter was twenty-five and his father was forty-six, but this date seems too late in view of the tightness of the young painter's style. More believable would be a date of 1840-1842, which would place the Reves watercolor in the late 1840s, when his father was about fifty years old.'Impressionist Paintings Drawings and Sculpture from the Wendy and Emery Reves Collection,' page 21
Related Image Identifier Link:
DMA_.1985_R_23.tif
