Jean-Antoine-Raymond BALZE (Rome, 1818 - Paris, 1909) The Education of Bacchus, 1840 Canvas Signed, localized and dated lower left on the tambourine: "BALZE Raymond / ROME 1840 74,8 x 100 cm Provenance : - Marie-Jean-Joseph Marcotte de Genlis (1781-1867), receiver general. - His sale after death, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Sibire, February 17-18, 1868, n° 3 (Faune dansant devant des nymphes. H. 75 c. L. 100 c.). - Sale Me Damien Libert, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, September 30, 2011, n°49. Raymond Balze entered the École des Beaux-Arts at the age of fourteen, in 1832. It was also by copying the works of the great masters in the Louvre that the artist developed his talent for painting. He was noticed by Ingres, whose devoted disciple he became. In 1835, he left Paris for Rome and stayed a few years at the Villa Medici under the direction of his master. For twelve years, he copied Raphael's Lodges in the Vatican Palace with his brother Paul, before returning to France. On his return, in 1848, he won the first round of the Rome competition and participated in the decoration of the Hôtel de Ville de Paris, in collaboration with Ingres. We can compare our painting with L'Enfance de Bacchus, Montauban, Musée Ingres, a composition also dated 1840, but of smaller dimensions. Coming from the Marcotte family, very close to Ingres, our painting had as a counterpart Ulysses and the Sirens, of the same dimensions and also painted in Rome by the artist's brother, Paul Balze (Paris, Tessier-Sarrou et Associés, June 28, 2017, n°28).