Drapery Study for Figure Holding Crown (middle register); study for wall paintings in the Chapel of Saint Remi, Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, 1858
19th century
Medium
Black chalk, stumped, heightened with white chalk, on gray paper
Dimensions
18 5/8 x 12 1/16 in. (47.5 x 30.5 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Karen B. Cohen Gift, 1989
Accession Number
1989.122.7
Art Historical Context
Isidore Pils, a prominent 19th-century French academic and professor at the École des Be-Arts, created this *Drapery Study for Holding Crown (middle register in 1858 as a preparatory sketch for grand wall paintings in the Chapel of Saint Remi at the Sainte-Clotilde church in. Built in the Gothic Revival style during the Second Empire, the church symbolized France's Catholic revival under Napoleon III, and P's decorative scheme brought historical and religious narratives to life through monumental frescoes. Rendered in black chalk, stumped for soft tonal transitions, and heightened with white ...
About the Artist
Isidore Pils · 1813–1875
Isidore-Alexandre-Augustin Pils (1813/15–1875), born in Paris to the soldier François Pils, emerged as a leading French academic painter known for religious and military subjects. At age twelve, he studied under Guillaume Guillon-Lethière for four years before entering the École des Beaux-Arts in 1831 as a student of François-Édouard Picot. His talent secured the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1838 w...