Lot 306: Philippe-Auguste Hennequin (Lyon 1762-1833 Leuze)

Philippe-Auguste Hennequin (Lyon 1762-1833 Leuze)
The disarming of Mars
signed 'Ph. Aug. Hennequin l'an 14'
black chalk, pen and black ink, brown wash
26 x 21¼ in. (66 x 54 cm.)

New York, Shepherd Gallery and Washington, D.C., Osuna Gallery, The French Neo-classic and Academic Tradition 1800-1900, 1984, no. 4.
Hamburg, Kunsthalle, Europa 1789, Aufklärung-Verklärung-Verfall, 1989, no. 501.
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and elsewhere, Visions of Antiquity: Neo-classical French Figure drawings, 1993, no. 53.

J. Benoit, Philippe-Auguste Hennequin 1762-1833, Paris, 1994, no. D.134, illus.

With an indecipherable blind stamp, lower right.
Anonymous sale; Hôtel des Ventes du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, Paris, 30 March 1980, lot 49, pl. II.
with Didier Aaron, Paris.
Martin L.H. Reymart, New York and Paris.
with Shepherd Gallery, New York, cat. 1984, no. 17.

Hennequin, the 1788 Prix de Rome winner, student of Jacques-Louis David and staunch supporter of the Revolution, often depicted complex allegorical subjects that were linked to current political events.
In this composition, Mars, the god of war is sleeping in the lap of Peace, a laurel-crowned figure who also holds Mars' battle helmet. Mars and Peace are sheltered by the Tree of Liberty and are surrounded by celebrating putti. In the far right background, the allegorical figure of Abundance symbolizes a prosperous future for France.
The present drawing is dated 1806-7, according to the Revolutionary calendar, but was certainly executed in 1806 before the artist left France later in that year. Jérémie Benoit (op. cit.) has explained the allegory of the present drawing with reference to Hennquin's sudden departure from France, identifying the sleeping hero with the artist: Hennequin's enemies stealthily remove his weapons, while the figure of Abundance in the background represents hope for the future.
Highly finished drawings of this kind with the artist's characteristically expressive dark pen work over wash, seem for the most part to have been independent works of art and not preparatory drawings, though there is an etching and mezzotint based upon one such drawing Bonaparte crowned in Egypt by Victory.