Drapery Study for Sainte-Clotilde (upper register); verso: Standing Soldier; (studies for wall paintings in the Chapel of Saint Remi, Sainte-Clotilde, Paris, 1858)
19th century
Medium
Red and white chalk on tracing paper (recto); black chalk (verso); pasted onto larger sheet; (verso visible through tracing paper)
Dimensions
17 x 9 3/4 in. (43.2 x 24.8 cm)
Classification
Drawings
Department
Drawings and Prints
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Purchase, Karen B. Cohen Gift, 1989
Accession Number
1989.122.43
Tags
Art Historical Context
This delicate preparatory drawing by French artist Isidore Pils (1813–1875) offers a glimpse into the meticulous behind grand 19th-century church decorations. Created around 1858, it served as a study for the paintings in the Chapel of Remi at the neo-Gothic Church of Sainte-Clotilde in, a major project blending Romantic historicism with academic precision. Pils, a history painter and member of the Institut de France, captured flowing drapery for the upper register on the recto, while the verso features a standing soldier—visible through the translucent tracing paper—highlighting his layered c...
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...