FRANÇOIS ANDRÉ VINCENT

Our sheet, recently rediscovered, is an important addition to the graphic work of François-André Vincent. Kept in a French private collection, it does not appear to have surfaced on the market since the 18th century. Another version of our Head of a Young Woman, held in the Louvre Museum (Inv. 32282), was long believed to be the model for Demarteau’s famous engraving. Unsigned and undated, that version appears, however, to be of lesser quality than our sheet. This one, signed by Vincent and dated 1780, matches exactly the inscription on the engraving (“Drawn by Mr. Vincent, Painter in 1780… Engraved by Demarteau in 1786”).

Executed with a sophisticated, elaborate, and fully mastered technique—combining red chalk, black chalk, and white chalk, subtly blended with stumping—it can be compared to the Head of a Young Woman in Three-Quarter View, Turned to the Left (Vienna, Albertina), dated 1782.

Vincent was first trained by his father, a talented miniaturist from Geneva, and then by Vien. In 1768, he won the Grand Prix with Germanicus Calming a Mutiny (École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts), and spent four years at the Académie de Rome, from 1771 to 1775. He was admitted to the Royal Academy in 1777 with a Saint Jerome (Montpellier, Musée Fabre), and officially received in 1782. Commissions soon followed; he worked notably for the Count of Artois and the Count of Orsay. In 1790, he succeeded Cochin as Keeper of the King’s Drawings, and the following year he was elected professor at the Academy, then one of the six commissioners of the Museum.

We thank Mr. Jean-Pierre Cuzin, who, after examining the drawing in person, confirmed its attribution. The work will be included in his forthcoming publication on François-André Vincent.