The merchant of Venice : Antonio & Shylock

Circa 1850-1856
Painted study on thin brown cardboard marouflé onto canvas. Unsigned.
Overall canvas dimensions 42x31cms Painted canvas 34,2x26,3cms.
Private collection in Bordeaux, France.

Our painting offers numerous commonalities with "a painted research" housed at the Louvre Museum in Paris (RF3856) Christ crying on Jérusalem also entitled Lamentation of the Christ on Jérusalem (study) in the Catalogue raisonné of paintings and prints of Marc Sandoz under n°181.

The support is different, an oil on thin carboard (marouflé on canvas) instead of a directly painted canvas. But dimension are comparable 35,6x28cms and 29x32cms. One can also find similarities between the Christ and Shylock character, the fold markings on the tunic and pleating around the knees, the sitting position, a close head, slanted eyes, both heads covered with a cloth, and the same color of tunic.

Thanks are to be made to the parallels offered by this painted search The Christ crying on Jerusalem kept in the Louvre Museum (RF3856), which is a mature work of the Master, as well as by the sketches housed at the Louvre. On their basis, it was possible to date and appreciate the various facets of an unpublished artwork, rich of evocations.

His antique, Italian, religious, literary inspirations, make it a very original interpretation of Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice within that time.

On the occasion of the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's death, the modernity that Theophile Gautier acknowledged towards him is unchanged. He defined it as "a mysterious melancholy, primitive savagery, which has inspired romantic painters of the second generation, Gustave Doré, Gustave Moreau and Puvis de Chavannes."

Detailed information note on request