(1784 -1844)
Oedipus and Antigone
Black and white chalk
486 x 385mm
Framed : 65,5 x 55 cm
Provenance: Private collection, France
Coming from a modest background, Mauzaisse started at the Beaux-Arts, in the workshop of François-André Vincent. He participated in the Salon from 1808 and received a 1st class gold medal with an “Arab mourning his steed”, today kept at the Museum of Fine Arts in Angers. An essential painter during the Restoration, he received commissions from Louis XVIII, for whom he executed a Prometheus, as well as a Tantalus in 1819 (kept at the Musée de Picardie in Amiens), then for Charles X at the Louvre. He thus created the ceiling of the King’s Grand Cabinet (1821), the rotunda of Mars and the fourth Council room with his famous Divine Wisdom giving laws to kings and legislators. He then worked for the Versailles museum under the July Monarchy and also received religious commissions for the cathedrals of Nantes and Bourges.
Our sheet represents the tragic story of Oedipus and Antigone.
The oracle of Delphi predicted to Laios and Jocasta, king and queen of Thebes, that if they had a son, he would kill his father and marry his mother. When this son was born, they ordered a servant to abandon the child. But a shepherd found him and took care of him. After many adventures, he killed a man he took for a gang leader. He would learn many years later that this man was Laius, his father. After the murder, arriving near Thebes, Oedipus found the answer to the riddle posed by the evil sphinx who terrorized the city. He threw himself into the void and Oedipus was proclaimed king of the city. He was given the queen as his wife, who was in fact his mother. Many years later, after realizing who he had killed, and realizing that his children were cursed by their parents’ incest, Oedipus told his story to his wife, who committed suicide. In despair, Oedipus renounced the throne and gouged out his eyes. Driven out of Thebes, he wandered with his daughter Antigone, who served as his guide. He reached Colonus, not far from Athens, where he died after Apollo promised him that his tomb would remain a sacred place.
Our large sheet, hitherto unpublished, illustrates the moment when Oedipus and Antigone wander, after being chased from Delphi.
It is a preparatory drawing for another sheet, very finished, now in the Jeffrey Horvitz collection (black and white chalk on blue paper, 500 x 385 mm).
