Study Of An Angel For The Fresco Of The Holy Supper - Saint Polycarpe Church

1855, Black pencil on paper
Annotated in black pencil fresco of St Polycarp // dated and located Lyon 1855 // signed L. Janmot, lower right// C.15.2 lower left. Collection stamp (Lugt3927) lower right.
Provenance: Collection of the art historian of the Lyon school Etienne Raymond Grafe (Neuilly 1940 – Lyon 2020)
Wooden frame with gilded wand with floral motifs, 19th century

Singular artist, at once mystical, aromantic, symbolist, visionary and ingrist, Louis Janmot grew up in Lyon in a deeply religious family from which he kept, as an adult, a faith imbued with sincerity. A student at the Royal College of Lyon, he studied philosophy with Frédéric Ozanam then was admitted to the School of Fine Arts in his hometown in 1831, under the direction of the historicist painter Claude Bonnefond. At the age of eighteen, he won his first academic distinction: the Golden Laurel. Two years later, he moved to Paris on rue de Buci alongside Jean-Baptiste Frénet and Claudius Lavergne, to study with Victor Orsel and Jean-Auguste-DominiqueIngres. He then stayed in Rome from 1835 and there met Hippolyte Flandrin. Returning to France in 1836, Louis Janmot took part in the Painting and Sculpture Salon. He presents three large paintings on a Christ-like subject including the tragic Agony in the Garden of Olives and the powerful Christ at the Tomb in 1840 which is praised by the critics of his time with the work of Philippe de Champaigne, thus placing the artist in the noble school of religious painting from the 17th century in France. At the same time as the Salons, Louis Janmot invested himself in a colossal pictorial and literary program which animated him from his adolescence and until his death: The Poem of the Soul. In January 1855, the painter obtained the order for a fresco (Ill.1) depicting the Holy Supper for the Lyon church of Saint Polycarp. The fresco began to deteriorate in 1880 and Janmot restored it with wax in April and May 1881. Now gone, the preparatory sketches drawn by the artist constitute the last artistic testimony. Fig.1. Louis Janmot, Fresco of the Holy Supper, Saint Polycarpe Church, Lyon. 1855-56. Archive photography, in situ © Ministry of Culture (France), Heritage and Photography Media Library, distribution RMN-GP Bibliography Hardouin-Fugier, E. (2020). Louis Janmot, painter of the soul. Frémur Éditions.