Théodore CHASSERIAU (Santa Barbara de Samana, 1819 - Paris, 1856) Adoration of the Shepherds, 1856 Canvas Signed and dated lower left: "Thre Chasseriau 1856 Label of the Daber gallery on the back 65 x 54,3 cm Provenance: - Jean-Marc Gras (1798-1880), friend of the artist. - Marie-Catherine Stroobant, née Gras (1827-1916), his widow. - His sale after death, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, May 22, 1917, n° 6. - Mr Moisson in 1931. - Tajan sale, Paris, June 19, 2018, n° 67. Exhibitions : - Les peintres orientalistes français, Paris, Galerie Durand-Ruel, February 16-March 13, 1897, n° 4. - Exhibition Chassériau, Galerie Daber, Paris, 9 June-10 July 1976, n° 23. Related works: - During: T. Chassériau, Adoration of the Magi, oil on wood, 65 x 53 cm (Petit Palais, Musée des Beaux-arts de la Ville de Paris, inv. PDUT1808). - Study after Princess Marie, graphite, 19.4 x 15 cm (former Jean-Louis Vaudoyer collection, location unknown). - Studies of figures (New York, Sotheby's, June 3, 1981, n° 164). Bibliography: - T. Gautier, Atelier de feu Théodore Chassériau, in. L'Artiste, VIe Série, XIII, 15 March 1857, p. 144. - V. Chevillard, Un peintre romantique - Théodore Chassériau, Paris, 1893, p. 285, n° 123. - L. Bénédite, Théodore Chassériau, sa vie et son œuvre, Paris, 1931, tome 2, pp. 439-440, pp. 479-481, p. 489 reproduced. - H. Marcel, L'art de notre temps - Chassériau, Paris, no date, p. 109. - M. Sandoz, Théodore Chassériau 1819-1856. Catalog raisonné des peintures et estampes, Paris, 1974, p. 69 and p. 410-11, N° 263, reproduced, Pl. CCXXVIII. - M. Sandoz, Portraits et visages dessinés par Théodore Chassériau, Cahiers Théodore Chassériau, II, Paris, 1986, p. 49. - Chassériau. Un autre romantisme, cat. exp. Paris, Strasbourg, New York, Paris, 2002-2003, p. 350. - B. Foucart, Le Renouveau de la peinture religieuse en France (1800-1860), Paris, 1987, p. 249 and fig. 174. Chassériau's last years were marked by a body of religious works. It was following the large decoration for the church of Saint-Philippe-du-Roule (1855) that the artist undertook the production of two works on the theme of the nativity. Despite their different supports, it would seem that they were conceived as pendants, as their almost identical frames suggest. Painted before The Adoration of the Magi (Paris, Petit Palais), our painting is characteristic of Chassériau's stylistic evolution at the turn of the 1850s with figures that could be those of contemporaries. Théophile Gautier wrote favorable reviews throughout Chassériau's career. It was Gautier who imposed the idea that his art constituted a synthesis between the contributions of Ingres and the color of Delacroix. The two artists became friends in 1835 in the romantic bohemia of the Doyenée circle, and met regularly at Madame de Girardin's Salon. The premature death of the painter marked him deeply. He wrote his obituary in the magazine L'Artiste (op. cit.), at the time of the sale of the studio. He speaks of the last visit he paid to the painter and of one of the two "adorations" in these terms: "He was painting a small Nativity and we had greatly admired the wild softness and the oriental languor that he had been able to give to the head of the Virgin, without altering the traditionally sacred type. Without sacrificing anything of the "nobility" and the "softness" of the old masters that he cherishes, nor of the purity and serenity of the drawing, he nevertheless turned towards an art more rooted in the present world, with figures that could be those of contemporaries. The face of the Virgin, used in both paintings, is none other than that of his muse, Princess Marie Cantacuzène (1820-1898). It seems that it was around 1854-1855 that Chassériau met the latter, who would become many years later, in 1897, the wife of one of his few students, Pierre Puvis de Chavannes (1824-1898).