Francois-Xavier Fabre

Art market, Nice;

Where acquired by Laure Pellicer, in 1979;

Anonymous sale, Farran Enchères, Montpellier, 26 May 2024, lot 139 (as French School circa 1815, Circle of Auguste Dominique Ingres);

Where acquired by the present owner.

For a long time anonymous, this half-length portrait of a man holding a book and standing in front of Vesuvius can clearly be attributed to François-Xavier Fabre, an artist from Montpellier, according to notes handwritten by Laure Pellicer, a specialist in the artist’s work.

Admitted to the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris in 1783, Fabre began his training with Jacques-Louis David before joining the Académie de France in Rome in 1787. He travelled in Italy, first to Naples and then Florence, where he met the Countess of Albany, who opened the way to commissions from various members of the aristocracy – French, Swiss, British and of course Italian.

After Napoleon was crowned in 1804, Fabre became a correspondent member of the class of the Beaux-Arts de l’Institut, while remaining a professor at the Académie. He painted many portraits of aristocrats – including three of Lucien Bonaparte – and travelled throughout Italy, accompanied by the Countess of Albany.

According to Laure Péllicer, the present portrait seems to date from this period, and more precisely 1812, the year that Fabre and the Countess of Albany were briefly in Naples. A former curator at the Musée Fabre in Montpellier, and a specialist in the artist’s works, Laure Péllicer emphasizes the similarities between the Portrait of Lucien Bonaparte at the Villa Rufinella dated 1808 (Museo Napoleonico, Rome, inv. MN 17) and the Portrait of Ugo Foscolo dated 1813 (now in the Biblioteca Nazionale Centrale in Florence). Our portrait has the decorum of the first of these: the prince is seen half-length, holding a book to underline his intellectual interests, in front of an Italianizing landscape with a threatening sky. Our portrait also bears a resemblance to the second of these portraits in the model’s tormented expression which, together with the stormy landscape, gives the composition a Romantic aspect.

The three portraits share the same use of colour, especially the white that illuminates the composition, accentuates the subjects’ character and physiognomy and models their faces.

In the present portrait, the model looks out at us with a candid but weary gaze, which might well reflect that of Lucien Bonaparte: arrested in 1810 when he was preparing to flee Rome for the United States, the emperor’s brother was imprisoned for four years, before going into exile in Rome in 1814 and becoming Prince of Canino. If Fabre painted this portrait in 1812, he must have been inspired by the Neapolitan landscape to use it as a setting for the figure of Lucien Bonaparte, marked by the political travails he was experiencing. 

It is also possible that in 1814, right after his return from his British exile, Lucien Bonaparte who plotted with his brother and Murat their return to power , asked Fabre to paint his portrait as the official image of the coming ruler of Italy.