Portrait of Jeanbon Saint-André

Prints and Drawings

1795

Jacques Louis David
French, 1748-1825

This penetrating character study of the artist’s friend and fellow French revolutionary, Jeanbon Saint-André (1749–1813), made while both were in prison, brilliantly captures the sitter’s political and moral beliefs through his intense and unflinching stare, defiantly crossed arms, and sober black frock coat and hat. At the same time, it recalls profile portraits on ancient coins, thus equating Saint-André and the revolution with the lofty ideals of the Roman republic. David’s handwritten inscription on the drawing reads: “A gift of friendship. Solace of affection. David made this in confinement in the third year of the French Revolution on July 28, 1795.”

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Jacques Louis David
Title: Portrait of Jeanbon Saint-André
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1795
Medium: Pen and black ink and brush and black ink with yellow ocher watercolor over graphite, on cream laid paper
Inscriptions: Signed on the mount: "Donum amicitiae. amoris Solatium. David faciebat in vinculis anno R.fr 3 (1795) messidoris 20"
Dimensions: 18.3 × 18.3 cm (7 1/4 × 7 1/4 in.)
Credit Line: Helen Regenstein Collection
Reference Number: 1973.153
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/44262/manifest.json

E. J. Delécluze, Louis David son école et son temps (Paris, 1855), p. 178.
L. Rosenthal, Louis David (Paris, 1904), p. 69.
Richard Cantinelli, Jacques-Louis David (Paris, 1930), p. 120, pl. 44.
Klaus Holma, David, Son Evolution et son Style (Paris, 1940), p. 120, notes 62-68.
David Lloyd Dowd, Pageant Master of the Republic (Nebraska, 1948), pp. 138-39, note 44.
Louis Hautecoeur, Louis David (Paris, 1954), p. 130.
J. Wilhelm, “David et ses portraits: Le visage de David vu par lui-même et par ses élèves,” Art de France (1964), p. 164.
Hans Naef, “Ingres Frühe Profilbildnisse in Medallionform,” Pantheon 28 (May-June 1970), p. 221-36.
Harold Joachim, “Two French Portraits from the End of the Eighteenth Century,” Bulletin of The Art Institute of Chicago, 67 (November-December 1973), pp. 3-5 (ill.).
The Art Quarterly, 35 (1973), p. 440 (ill.).
Herold Joachim, “Trois siècles de portraits dessinés à l’Art Institute de Chicago,” L’Oeil, 255 (October 1976), p. 5, no. 2 (ill.)
Harold Joachim, French Drawings and Sketchbooks of the Eighteenth Century in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 1979), pp. 20-21, no. 1C5.
Antoine Schnapper, David témoin de son temps (Fribourg, 1980), pp. 170-171 (ill.).
Luc de Nanteuil, Jacques-Louis David (New York, 1985), p. 34 (ill.).
J. J. Lévêque, La Vie et l’oeuvre de Jacques-Louis David (Paris, 1989), p. 146.
B. Nöel, David (Vaduz, 1989), p. 40.
W. Roberts, Jacques-Louis David: Revolutionary Artist, Art, Politics, and the French Revolution (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1989), pp. 105-07.
D. A. Wisner, “David Homer Drawings” (unpublished article; 1988-1989), no. 32.
D. A. Wisner, “David en prison 1794-1795: l’image post-thermidorienne de la Révolution,” L’Image de la Révolution, III (1989), pp. 2067, 2072, note 39, and p. 2073, note 45.
A. Brookner, Jacques-Louis David (London, 1990), p. 59.
A. Sérullaz, Musée du Louvre, Cabinet des dessins: Inventaire génerale des dessins (Paris, 1991), under no. 204.
E. Lajer-Burcharth, “The Aesthetics of Male Crisis: The Terror in the Republican Imagery and in Jacques-Louis David’s Work from Prison,” Femininity and Masculinity in Eighteenth Century Art and Culture (Manchester, 1994), pp. 226-28, 236-37 and 241, note 15.
E. Lajer-Burcharth, Necklines: The Art of Jacques-Louis David after the Terror, (New Haven, Conn., 1999), pp. 89, 100-103, 105, 108, 115, 117-119 and 321, note 48.
S. Lee, David (London, 1999), p. 151.
Pierre Rosenberg and Louis-Antoine Prat, Jacques-Louis David 1748-1825: Catalogue raisonné des dessins, I (Milan, 2002), p. 166, no. 148 (ill.).
Mainz am Rhein, Landesmuseum, “Beutekunst unter Napoleon. Die “französische Schenkung” an Mainz 1803,” October 25, 2003-March 14, 2004, p. 90, fig. 1.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh, “‘A Lasting Monument’: The Regenstein Collection at The Art Institute of Chicago,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies, 26, 1 (2000), p. 9.
Suzanne Folds McCullagh, “An Artist Sketching in His Studio, 1771/1772,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 26, 1 (2000), pp. 52-53, no. 21, fig. 20.

Paris, Expo Universelle, 1878, cat. 943.
Paris, Musée Carnavalet, “La Revolution Française,” 1939, cat. 719.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “The Helen Regenstein Collection of European Drawings,” 1974, pp. 122-23, cat. 60 (ill.), cat. by Harold Joachim.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Selected Works of 18th Century French Art in the Collections of The Art Institute of Chicago,” January 24-March 28, 1976, p. 71, cat. 65 (ill.).
Paris, Musée du Louvre, “Dessins français de l’Art Institute de Chicago de Watteau à Picasso,” October 15, 1976-January 17, 1977, n.p., cat. 24 (ill.).
Frankfurt am Main, Germany, Städtische Galerie im Städelschen Kunstinstitut, “Französische Zeichnungen aus dem Art Institute of Chicago,” February 10-April 10, 1977, pp. 60-61, cat. 26 (ill.).
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Great Drawings from The Art Institute of Chicago: The Harold Joachim Years 1958-1983,” July 24-September 30, 1985, pp. 108-09, cat. 46 (ill.), cat. by Martha Tedeschi.
Paris, Musée du Louvre, “Jacques-Louis David,” October 26, 1989-February 12, 1990, cat. 138.
Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada, “French Drawings from the National Gallery of Canada,” May 21-August 29, 2004, p. 110, under cat. 43, by Sonia Couturier; traveled to The Art Gallery of Greater Victoria, Canada, December 4-February 20, 2005; and the Edmonton Art Gallery, Canada, September 16-November17, 2005.
The Art Institute of Chicago, “Gods and (Super)heroes: Drawing in an Age of Revolution”, November 16, 2017 - April 1, 2018.
New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, “Jacques Louis David: Radical Draftsman”, Febuary 14 - May 15, 2022, p. 17, 55, 177, 200 (ill.), 203-204, 206, cat. 59, cat. by Perrin Stein, et. al.

The artist to Jean-Bon Saint-André (died 1813), Montauban [inscription]. Possibly, Thuet de Caussade [Rosenberg and Prat 2002]. Marquis de Biron (1860-1939); sold, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 9-11, 1914, de Biron sale, lot 12 to Oscar Stettiner for 10,000 fancs [Rosenberg and Prat 2002]. Gabriel Cognacq (1880-1951), Paris, by 1939 [Paris 1939]; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, June 10, 1952, Cognacq sale, lot 49. Sacha Guitry, Paris (1885-1957), by 1954 [Rosenberg and Prat 2002]; sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 24, 1972, lot 22 to Henri Baderou (1910-1991). Sold by Jacques Seligmann and Company, New York, to the Art Institute, 1973.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.