Two fair-skinned partially nude women recline in the center, with men and babies around in a landscape setting.
Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College
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Photo © President and Fellows of Harvard College

The women assume dramatic poses lying on steps in front of a stone pillar with trees and sky behind. The woman laying horizontal across the steps has a baby near her breast. Two older men with beards on left lean in toward this woman, one pulls a garment underneath her. The other woman sits leaning over the steps, her bent left arm covers her face. A standing man on right of center holds a tambourine looking back down at the women, he wears a flowing garment around his waist. Two nude toddlers wrestle each other on the right.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1957.51
People
Charles-Joseph Natoire, French (Nîmes 1700 - 1777 Castel Gandolfo)
Title
Bacchanal
Classification
Drawings
Work Type
drawing
Date
c. 1770
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/297220

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Watercolor, brown, black, and gray wash, with white and colored gouache, over black chalk and brown ink, squared in black chalk, on light tan antique laid paper, laid down on a decorated mount
Dimensions
37.8 × 52.7 cm (14 7/8 × 20 3/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • Signed: lower left, black ink: C. Natoire
  • inscription: signed, lower left, black ink: C. Natoire
  • watermark: None visible–drawing laid down

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
The artist’s estate; his second estate sale, Chariot, Paris, 14 December 1778 and the following days, part of lot 90, sold; to Alexandre-Joseph Paillet, Paris; Charles-François-René, Chevalier Mesnard de Clesle, Paris; his estate sale, Thierry, Paris, 2 January 1804, lot 18; Stephen Higgon, Paris; Charles E. Dunlap, New York, gift; to Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Charles E. Dunlap, inv. no. 1957.51

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of Charles E. Dunlap
Accession Year
1957
Object Number
1957.51
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

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Publication History

  • Pierre Rosenberg, French Master Drawings of the 17th & 18th Centuries in North American Collections / Dessins français du 17ème & du 18ème siècles des collections américaines, exh. cat., Secker & Warburg (London, 1972-1973), cat. no. 98, pp. 107, 186-87
  • Marjorie B. Cohn, Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1977), cat. no. 46, pp. 12, 49, 69, 71-n.18, 76-n.10, 106
  • Caroline Houser, Dionysos and His Circle: Ancient Through Modern, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, 1979), cat. no. 63, pp. 84-85
  • Émile Dacier, Catalogues de ventes et livrets de Salons illustrés par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin, Laget (Nogent-le-Roi, 1993), vol. 8, p. 63
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, Jean-Francois Méjanès, Alain Mérot, Margaret Morgan Grasselli, Sophie Raux-Carpentier, William W. Robinson, Marianne Roland Michel, and Pierre Rosenberg, Mastery & Elegance: Two Centuries of French Drawings from the Collection of Jeffrey E. Horvitz, exh. cat., ed. Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 1998), pp. 63, 74-n.57
  • Mary Tavener Holmes and Donald Posner, Fifteenth- to Eighteenth-Century European Drawings: Central Europe, The Netherlands, France, England, ed. Egbert Haverkamp-Begemann, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Princeton University Press (New York and Princeton, 1999), p. 328-n.8
  • Jean-Francois Méjanès, The Timeless Eye: Master Drawings from the Jan and Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski Collection, exh. cat., ed. Philip Rylands, Peggy Guggenheim Collection (Venice, 1999), p. 140
  • Jean-Francois Méjanès, Miradas sin tiempo: Dibujos, Pinturas y Esculturas de la Colección Jan y Marie-Anne Krugier-Poniatowski, exh. cat., ed. Tomàs Llorens, Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza (Madrid, 2000), p. 172
  • Susanna Caviglia-Brunel, “Des Finalités du Dessin chez Charles-Joseph Natoire", Revue de l’Art, Comité Français d'Histoire de l'Art (Paris, 2004), no. 143, pp. 35-48, pp. 35-36, 45-n.8
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., "To Delight the Eye": French Drawings and Paintings from the Collection of Charles E. Dunlap, exh. cat., Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, 2005), cat. no. 25, pp. 1, 6, 9-n.12, 12
  • Susanna Caviglia-Brunel, Charles-Joseph Natoire, 1700-1777, Arthena (Paris, 2012), cat. no. D. 608, pp. 165, 436-37
  • Old Master Drawings, auct. cat., Sotheby's, New York (New York, January 28, 2015), p. 34
  • Ewa Lajer-Burcharth and Elizabeth M. Rudy, ed., Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, exh. cat., Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, 2017), pp. 195, 285, repr. p. 192 as fig. 1
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Francesco Buccella, Sonia Couturier, Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, Melissa Hyde, Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Isabelle Mayer-Michalon, and Xavier Salmon, Tradition & Transitions: Eighteenth-Century French Art from The Horvitz Collection, exh. cat., ed. Alvin L. Clark, Jr., The Horvitz Collection (2017), pp. 128, 499-n.3
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr. and Edouard Kopp, French Drawings from the Age of Claude, Poussin, Watteau, and Fragonard: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2022), cat. no. 65, repr.; detail repr. p. 183, p. 16

Exhibition History

  • French Master Drawings of the 17th & 18th Centuries in North American Collections, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 09/02/1972 - 10/15/1972; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 11/03/1972 - 12/17/1972; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 01/12/1973 - 03/11/1973; New York Cultural Center, New York, 04/04/1973 - 05/13/1973
  • Wash and Gouache: A Study of the Development of the Materials of Watercolor, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 05/12/1977 - 06/22/1977
  • Dionysos and His Circle: Ancient through Modern, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 12/10/1979 - 02/10/1980
  • "To Delight the Eye": French Drawings and Paintings from the Collection of Charles E. Dunlap, Fogg Museum, Cambridge, 12/17/2005 - 03/12/2006
  • Around Antique: Prints, Drawings, and Photographs (Teaching Gallery) S421, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 05/14/2010 - 09/04/2010
  • HAA 271x The Origins of Modernity: The "New" 18th Century Rotation #1: Large Niche (S426A) Spring 2011, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 01/14/2011 - 03/05/2011
  • Drawing: The Invention of a Modern Medium, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 01/21/2017 - 05/07/2017

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu