Godefroy Engelmann’s lithograph after Abel de Pujol

Godefroy Engelmann I (1788–1839)

“Tête d'Ëtude d'après le Tableau de St. Etienne”, 1817 after Alexandre Denis Abel de Pujol (1785–1861)

Lithograph on wove paper

Size: (sheet) 49.4 x 34.9 cm

Lettered in the plate: (lower left) “E: Parizeau élêve de Mr, David.”; (lower centre) “Tête d'Ëtude d'après le Tableau de St. Etienne / peint, par Mr Abel de Pujol — Salon de 1817.”; (lower right) “Lith de G: Engelmann. / Chez Ostervald L’aine’ rue Pavée St. Andre ‘des Arts No.3”

Condition: crisp impression in marvellous condition (i.e. there are no holes, tears, folds or foxing). This is an exceptionally rare and very large lithograph.

I am selling this exceptionally rare and very large lithograph for AU$139 in total (currently US$105.85/EUR93.73/GBP80.95 at the time of posting this listing) including postage and handling to anywhere in the world.

If you are interested in purchasing this neoclassical master print by the artist that patented chromolithography, please contact me (oz_jim@printsandprinciples.com) and I will send you a PayPal invoice to make the payment easy.

At first I was perplexed by this beautiful neoclassical portrait, as the inscribed title seemed to suggest that this finely rendered face with its bare shoulder and cute kiss-curl was of Saint Etienne (aka Saint Stephen). My bewilderment was not so much about delicate facial features and mild eroticism in the depiction of Saint Etienne—who is famous as the first Christian martyr (presuming I have my facts right)—but rather that Saint Etienne should be a man. Of course, once I translated the French text and studied the content properly I quickly realised that this head is a study for a figure featured in Abel de Pujol’s painting: “Preafication de Saint Etienne” (1817) (see an image of the painting at: http://www.patrimoine-histoire.fr/images/Patrimoine/Paris/eStThomasdAquin/ParSTdA81c.JPG).

To give a context for the significance of Abel de Pujol’s painting, Stephen Bann (2013) in “Ways Around Modernism” offers the following wonderful summary:

“Abel de Pujol's star has waned (to put it mildly), but in 1817 it could scarcely have been brighter, since the painting [“Preafication de Saint Etienne”] had tied for first prize in the category of history painting in the first (and last) major competition of the Restoration, supervised by the Académie des Beaux Arts at the request of the king himself. In other terms Abel de Pujol's work had achieved in 1817 just the measure of official acknowledgement that Ingres was looking for (though not finding) before his success with Louis Ill/ at the Salon of 1824 and his election to the Académie des Beaux-Arts in the following year.”