Lot 166: REGNAULT, Jean-Baptiste Collection of 141 original drawing

REGNAULT, Jean-Baptiste Collection of 141 original drawings illustrating Ovid's Metamorphoses. S.l. end 18th c. 141 drawings with China ink and grey lavish on laid paper (some of them bluish), +/- 8 x 10 cm, mounted on cream vellum paper leaves, 21 x 29 cm, and surrounded by a black ink fillet frame (some foxing, sl. offsetting on blank versos of lvs.). "Bradel" three-quarter brown morocco signed Victor Champs (c. 1900), flat spine with gilt title (clear paper label with ms. correction for the author, some rubbing). Important collection of original small size drawings, superbly and very delicately penned, unsigned, attributed to the French neoclassical painter J.-B. Regnault (1754-1829), "Prix de Rome" in 1776, elected in the Academy in 1782. He taught at the "École des beaux-arts" and "École polytechnique" in Paris. He was created Baron in 1829, four months before his death. He liked mythological subjects in particular, often taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", but he is also known for his historical paintings. Each drawing has a ms. caption in the French translation by the Abbé Antoine Banier (1673-1741), an Ovid specialist (see cat. cited below). Our collection is quoted in the public auction catalogue following Regnault's death : "Catalogue des tableaux, esquisses, dessins et croquis, de M. le baron Regnault ... et une collection de 140 dessins originaux des Métamorphoses d'Ovide ... " sale, Paris, 1st March 1830 , written by Charles Paillet (Paris, Bonnefonds-Delaville, 1830), No. 174: then bound in two vols., with mss. title and table not kept in the new binding. The bookbinder has erroneously put "Monnet" (probably the French painter and illustrator Charles Monnet, 1732-1808) as author on spine. Prov. Charles Morizet (bookplate). - M. Bonnefon, 1923 (ms. note) - Georges Petit .