Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña (French, 1807-1876). Vénus et l'Amour, 1857. Oil on panel. 12 x 8-1...

Description

Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña (French, 1807-1876)
Vénus et l'Amour, 1857
Oil on panel
12 x 8-1/2 inches (30.5 x 21.6 cm)
Signed and dated lower right: N. Díaz 57
Artist's estate stamp lower left

PROVENANCE:
The artist;
His sale: Hôtel Drouot, Paris, January 22-27, 1877, lot 31 (as Venus et l'Amour);
Christie's, New York, September 6, 2006, lot 153 (as Mother and child);
Christie's, New York, October 18-19, 2017, lot 570 (as Mother and child);
Skinner, Boston, Massachusetts, January 26, 2018, lot 218A (as Mother and child, possibly Venus et l'Amour);
Private collection, Beverly Hills, California.

This painting will be included in the supplement to the Catalogue raisonné de l'œuvre peint par Narcisse Virgile Díaz de la Peña (1807-1875) currently in preparation by Rolande Miquel and Michael Klaa.

Narcisse Virgile Díaz de La Peña was key figure in the Barbizon School, known for his warmth, wit, and very dramatic life. Born in Bordeaux to a family of Spanish immigrants, Díaz was orphaned at an early age and placed in foster care in Paris. At thirteen, he suffered the amputation of a leg following an infection caused by an insect or snake bite-an early misfortune that solidified his remarkable resilience. His wooden leg, far from impeding him, became an emblem of his character and a distinctive feature of his artistic persona.

Díaz began his career, as did many of his contemporaries, in the porcelain workshops of Sèvres, where he worked alongside Jules Dupré (see lot 69057)-later a close friend and fellow Barbizon painter. In the late 1820s, he studied briefly under François Souchon (1787-1857) and pursued a self-directed education by copying old masters at the Louvre. The chromatic richness and emotional charge of Eugène Delacroix's paintings exerted an enduring influence on his imagination.

During the 1830s and 1840s, Díaz's output largely consisted of romantic, mythological, and bohemian subjects, reflecting the prevailing taste of the art market and revealing the influence of Correggio, Leonardo da Vinci, and Pierre-Paul Prud'hon. These compositions brought him commercial success and financial security. Yet Díaz's artistic ambition increasingly turned toward landscape painting, inspired by his admiration for Théodore Rousseau (see lots 69049 and 69066), whose commitment to the direct study of nature he deeply respected.

From the mid-1830s onward, Díaz became a habitual summer visitor to the picturesque village of Barbizon located on the edge of the forest of Fontainebleau, where he joined Rousseau and other painters drawn to the region, and included in today's sale, such as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (see lot 69051) and his friend Louis Français (see lot 69064), and, later, Henri-Joseph Harpignies (see lots 69046 and 69055), Paul Désiré Trouillebert (see lot 69063), Alexandre René Veron, (see lots 69053 and 69054), and Jules Jacques Veyrassat (see lots 69080 and 69083). At Barbizon, and the surrounding forest, Díaz and his fellow artists devoted themselves to plein air practice and to capturing the immediate sensations of the natural world.

For additional works by Díaz, see lots 69056 and 69060.


Estimate: $6,000 - $8,000.

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