CHARLES VICTOIRE FRÉDÉRIC MOENCH

(1784 / 1864)

CHARLES VICTOIRE FREDERIC MOENCH Paris, France (1784 / 1864) "Love and Fidelity", 1827

Oil on canvas. Signed and dated at the lower left. Provenance: Private Spanish collection. Acquired by the current owner's family in 1951 at the Hotel Drouot, Paris (an inscription on the reverse of the work records this provenance). Bibliography: BENEZIT, E., Dictionnaire des peintres, sculpteurs, dessinateurs et graveurs, edited by Jacques Busse, Grund, 1999, vol. IX, p. 694. Charles-Victoire-Frederic Moench was a Parisian painter and decorator of recognised standing who practised various genres such as history painting and portraiture, and who, over the course of his long professional career, also devoted himself to the restoration of works of art and the creation of theatrical sets. Initially trained by his father, Simon-Frederic Moench (1746-1837), he was a pupil of Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy (1767-1824), a painter who, although he developed a style already foreshadowing Romanticism, remained rooted in the classicism of Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825). This beautiful painting, Love and Fidelity, is dated 1827, the same year in which Eugene Delacroix (1798-1863), the leading figure of the new Romantic aesthetic, painted his first major work, The Death of Sardanapalus, causing a great stir in artistic circles. It shows how Moench remained faithful to the aesthetic of his teacher, treating a subject from classical mythology in which precise draughtsmanship and restraint continue to take precedence over the broad brushstrokes and agitated movement of Romantic painting. However, as in the works of his teacher, certain features can be seen that anticipate the new aesthetic, such as the misty landscape in which the scene unfolds, or the certain eroticism apparent in the subject matter, the nudity of one of the figures, and the subtle transparency of the breasts of the woman depicted in the foreground: the goddess Diana. In Roman mythology, Diana was characterised as virginal and chaste. Keeping her distance from men, she admitted only maidens into her retinue. In the canvas, her attributes as goddess of the hunt are visible: the bow, a quiver, arrows and a pair of dogs. She is fully clothed and, with a modest gesture, avoids engaging with the viewer by lowering her gaze to the ground. The nude female figure behind Diana is Venus, goddess of love, beauty and desire. She is accompanied by her son Cupid who, bow in hand, attempts to comfort the chaste Diana and draw her, unsuccessfully, into his world of passion and carnal desire. The work presents two opposing poles: the passionate love embodied by Venus and Cupid, set against the chastity and fidelity of Diana. Measurements: 237 x 178 cm