Augustin de Saint-Aubin
Augustin de Saint-Aubin
Paris 1736 – 1807
Signed and dated aug. de St aubin del 1764. lower right
Black chalk, pen and brown ink, grey wash
195 x 146 mm (7 11/16 x 5 3/4 in.)
Engraved:
In reverse by Jules de Goncourt in 1859.
Provenance:
Augustin de Saint-Aubin who gave it to his publisher Antoine-Augustin Renouard (1765-1853), Paris; his sale 20 November – 23 December 1854, part of (100 francs); acquired by Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Paris; their 17 February 1897, lot 288 (15,100 francs, reproduced); acquired de la Ferronays, Paris, 1925, by descent to Marquise de la Ferronays, Paris, 1933; MM. De X. sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 3-4 June 1958, lot 51 (pl. I).
Exhibition:
Paris, salle Martinet, 26 boulevard des Italiens, Tableaux et dessins de l'école française, principalement du XVIIIe siècle, tirés de collections d'amateurs, 1860, no. 287; Paris, Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Dessins de maîtres anciens, 1879, no. 607; Paris, Hôtel Jean Charpentier, Exposition des Saint-Aubin, 1925, no. 152, pl. III; Paris, Exposition Goncourt, organized by the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, for the 75th anniversary of the foundation of the Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 140 faubourg Saint-Honoré, 1933, no. 251.
Bibliography:
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, "Petits maîtres français du dix-huitième siècle. Les Saint-Aubin", L'Artiste, 18 and 25 October 1857, p. 118, col. 2 and n° 1; J., 17 February 1859, I, p. 584; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Les Saint-Aubin, étude contenant quatre portraits inédits gravés à l'eau forte, Paris, Dentu, 1859, p. 14-15 and n° 1 opp. title page, plate engraved by Jules de Goncourt; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, Notules, additions, errata, livraison contenant quatre œuvres-fortes, Paris, Dentu, 1875, p. III; Philippe Burty, Eaux-fortes de Jules de Goncourt, notices et catalogue de ..., Paris, 1876, p. 2, n° 2, Emmanuel Bocher, Les gravures françaises au XVIIIe siècle ..., Paris, 1875-1882, V, p. 112, n° 352; Philippe de Chennevières, "Les dessins de maîtres anciens exposés à l'école des Beaux-Arts", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1879, p. 211; Philippe de Chennevières, Les dessins de maîtres anciens exposés à l'Ecole des Beaux-Arts en 1879, Paris, 1880, p. 118; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, L'Art du dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1880-82, I, p. 389, 390 et n° 1, 466, reproduced p. 378 et II, p. 467; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, "Augustin de Saint-Aubin", L'Artiste, January 1881, p. 60 and 61; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, La maison d'un artiste, Paris, 1881, I, p. 154; Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, L'art du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, Charpentier, 1881-82, II, p. 145, 146-47 (n° 1), 249; Adrien Moureau, Les Saint-Aubin, Paris, 1894, p. 82 and 86; Dr. P. E. Koehler, Edmund und Jules de Goncourt, die Begründer des Impressionismus, Leipzig, 1912, p. 251-52, reproduced p. 131; Roger Marx, "Les Goncourt et l'art", Maîtres d'hier et d'aujourd'hui, Paris, 1914, p. 18; Emile Dacier in L'Illustration, no. 4284, 11 April 1925, reproduced p. 340; Camille Gronkowski, "L'exposition des Saint-Aubin", R.A.F., April 1925, reproduced p. 177; W. de Grüneisen, Bibliothèque d'art et d'archéologie..., 1930, p. 321; Georges Lecomte, "Les Goncourt collectionneurs", L'Illustration, n° 4735, 2 December 1933, n.p., reproduced; Elisabeth Launay, Les frères Goncourt collectionneurs de dessins, Paris, Arthena, 1991, pp. 432-33, no. 276, reproduced p. 432.
It is traditionally accepted that this sheet, a subtle and intimate depiction of an artist in the process of drawing, is a self-portrait of Augustin de Saint-Aubin. The drawing, which has been well-known since it was acquired by the Goncourt and was published and exhibited on a number of occasions until its disappearance for several decades. Its reappearance provides an opportunity to reiterate its importance and that of its author.
In the first instance, it is not possible to mention Augustin de Saint-Aubin without also referring to his family. This engraver and draughtsman, a son of Gabriel-Germain de Saint-Aubin the embroiderer to the King, was the penultimate of seven children. They all drew and most entered artistic professions. The oldest son, Charles Germain (1721-1786) took over his father's business and in turn became an embroider. He enjoyed writing and published a number of technical works: L'Art du brodeur, the Livre de caricatures tant bonnes que mauvaises, the Recueil des Plantes. It is also due to him that today we have precious biographical information and interesting psychological descriptions of the family members. The second child Gabriel or Gabriel Jacques (1724-1780) is today the most famous. An insatiable draughtsman, he produced hundreds of drawing and engravings, intimate annotations, views of Paris, sketches of places, events for example. which make him the most interesting artistic witness of Paris of this period. Catherine Louise (1727 – 1805) looked after Charles Germain's children. Louis Michel (1731 – 1779) became a porcelain painter at Sèvres. Athanase (1734-1783) was an actor. Augustin was the second last, after him comes Agathe (1739 – 1764), who was "misshapen ". Le Livre des Saint-Aubin, a sketchbook kept at the Louvre which contains several drawings by various members of the family as well as notes by Charles Germain, includes drawings by Agathe and Catherine-Louise. Although they did not have the same talent as their brothers, their works are nevertheless full of charm. Drawings by Charles Germain's daughter, Françoise known as Marie are also included as well as by Louise-Nicole Godeau, Augustin's wife. Drawing is therefore a common activity within this original and endearing family and this sheet is most gracious evidence of it.
Of the Saint-Aubin brothers, Augustin is the who in his time enjoyed the greatest success, through his activity as an engraver and creator of vignette illustrations for the theatre and publishing amongst others. He was also a good portrait artist, engraved by Charles-Nicolas Cochin. Paradoxically, he is the one about whom the least is known; Charles Germain, biographer and chronicler of the family and famously close to Gabriel, was sparing with information about him.
This drawing has always been considered to be a self-portrait. The Goncourt brothers had received this information, as well as the drawing itself from Antoine-Augustin Renouard, a bookseller and publisher who had several of his publications illustrated by Augustin de Saint-Aubin. The Goncourt brothers liked the portrait so much that Jules engraved it, the first engraving to cause him "true emotion".[1] The sheet is signed and dated 1764. Augustin was 28 years old, about to get married and was already an accomplished engraver. The artist shown seems however to be very young, to such an extent that it is possible to wonder if it is in fact a 28 year old man. In addition to the existence of a graphite study annotated Saint-Aubin dessiné par lui-même,[2] we can quote the Goncourt brothers, who especially appreciated this drawing and who do not seem to have been surprised by this youthful appearance:[3] "he was happy, Augustin. This man of work was a very beautiful boy, one of these amiable figures of men to whom powder gave something brilliant, keen, feminine, mischievous and tenderly voluptuous: a boy as pretty as that enabled him to become the husband of a very beautiful wife. When he was old, Augustin gave his friend Renouard the drawing of his own coquettish figure, created in 1764 . [...] he is twenty-eight years old. But who would say so? He looks so young in this morning arrangement, under his powdered wig, with his hair tucked up like a lady's chignon. A little bistre, a few touches of the pen, and it is him sitting on a chair, his feet on a bar, the knees raised, a board on his knees, the right hand raised, armed with a pencil holder which measures, the eye before him going from pencil holder to the model. The eye, filled with a flame! And the nice little snub nose and the little mouth, and the round little chin of a child! What a loving head! With which everything is harmonious and the neglected and rolled cravat and the clothing untidy, and the background from which he stands out: this corner of rogue mythology, half hidden under a piece of canvas, which seems to be the horizon of the ideas of the painter, quite free, from the Premier Occupant. This portrait tells all, and it says again why Mademoiselle Louise-Nicole Godeau got married."
On the basis of all the portraits we know of members of this family which enjoyed being portrayed, precision of age was never entirely an aim in itself. As regards his self-portrait of 1750, Gabriel was 26 years old but he could be just 18. Sitting on a chair, shown in three-quarters, Agathe is portrayed by her brother in 1763; she is only 24 but appears to be 16. Age is not their interest. But above all, added here to the desire to create a self-portrait is that of referring to pre-existing iconography in his immediate artistic circle, that of the "young painter". This explains furthermore the use of the profile which is quite rare for a self-portrait. Indeed, one cannot avoid noticing in this self portrait of Augustin the remembrance of the young artist absorbed by the study of his model in the Académie particulière, an intimate and poetic work created by Gabriel in 1755. Both are very young, sitting in profile, absorbed in their work beside a canvas on an easel. That Augustin took inspiration from his brother is very natural; before joining Fessard in 1755 to learn engraving, he had learned drawing from him. His brother's compositions, which he frequently studied and copied[4] were essential to his training. In addition, if we know that in 1776 Gabriel repeated the composition of the Académie particulière this time in a drawing, with the furniture updated[5] (as Perrin Stein commented), and the painter aged slightly, we understand the work's importance for the artist and his family. Colin Bailey has mentioned in relation to it, Le Peintre de Paysage painted around 1733 for Gabriel's former master, François Boucher,[6] who shows an unkempt painter who has hardly left childhood in an untidy studio was in a way symbolic and profoundly amusing/humoristic. Our drawing, beyond the window which it opens into the world of the Saint-Aubin, shows Augustin at work, almost in the manner of a photograph and can itself be included in the tradition of the "young painter"; the self portrait of Augustin while drawing but nevertheless dressed and made up with care, is an elegant and spirited response to the works of his elders.
Here, we find the usual technique used by the Saint-Aubin family who combined black chalk with pen using brown ink. Despite its prettiness and the grace of all his drawings, this sheet however is definitely among Augustin's best works. The delicacy of the face should be observed with a magnifying glass, its refined modelling, the small curl of the nostrils, the charm of the eyes and mouth, all these characteristics combine to form an extremely subtle expression. Few sheets in the Livre des Saint-Aubin succeed in combining to such an extent, execution worthy of the art of the miniature and such a physical presence of the model. The youth, the fineness, the lightness which seem to emanate from this little scene are profoundly representative of the joyous and spiritual atmosphere of the eighteenth century and its ideal of life that is so typical and which happily combines the refinement of interiors and dress with the daily and almost casual practice of the arts.
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[1] Elisabeth Delaunay, Les frères Goncourt collectionneurs de dessins, Paris, Arthena, 1991, p. 433.
[2] The drawing also comes from the Renouard collection and was sold in Paris at the Galerie G. Petit on 13-15 May 1907, n° 108.
[3] Les Saint-Aubin, étude contenant quatre portraits inédits gravés à l'eau-forte, Paris, Dentu, 1859, p. 14-15 (reprinted in 1881-1882, éditions Charpentier, 2e série, p 145-147).
[4] For example, among many others Le Ballet des Savoyards (Louvre RF 52222).
[5] Gabriel de Saint-Aubin 1724-1780, exhibition catalogue, Paris, New York, n° 67, p. 262.
[6] op. cit., p. 261.