Saturday, October 15, 2022

Henri Regnault - Romantic Sensuality and Early Death

Henri Regnault
Study for Orpheus in Hell
(figure studies for the Fates)
ca. 1865
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Achilles with the Body of Patroclus
1865
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Study of Torso
before 1871
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Anatomical Studies of a Horse
(Automedon with the Horses of Achilles)
1868
drawing
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Henri Regnault
Figure Study for Automedon
(Automedon with the Horses of Achilles)
ca. 1868
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Figure Study for Automedon
(Automedon with the Horses of Achilles)
ca. 1868
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Automedon with the Horses of Achilles
1868
oil on canvas
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston

Henri Regnault
Drapery Study
before 1871
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Study of Draped Model
1865
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Studies of Arm
before 1871
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Summary Execution
under the Moorish Kings of Granada

1870
oil on canvas
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Court of the Ambassadors in the Alhambra, Granada
1868
watercolor
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Portrait of Madame Louvancour
1867
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Portrait Study of Madame Fouques-Duparc
ca. 1868
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Study for the Head of Salome
ca. 1870
oil on canvas
(bitumen-based pigment visibly degraded)
Brighton and Hove Museums and Art Galleries

"Henri Regnault was born in Paris in 1843 and killed in 1871 in one of the last battles of the Franco-Prussian war.  Yet the young man had already made a name for himself in the Paris art scene.  After winning the Prix de Rome in 1868, he was the first not to spend the three compulsory years in the Italian capital that went with the prize but obtained permission to discover other cultures.  He went to Spain . . . then briefly to North Africa, bringing back a number of astonishing canvases, flooded with light."

– from curator's notes at Musée d'Orsay, Paris

Henri Regnault
Study for Orpheus in Hell
(figure study for Mercury)
ca. 1865
drawing
Musée d'Orsay, Paris