19th Century French School, Sancho Panza Finding His Donkey (don Quixote, Cervantes)

French school, first half of the 19th century
attributed to Louise Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont (1790-1871)
Sancho Panza reuniting with his donkey
15 x 13 cm
brown ink wash over a pencil drawing

Framed, under glass
Dimensions with frame: 20 x27 cm

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Sancho ran to his donkey, kissed him and said: “Well, how have you fared, my child, my companion, dear gray of my eyes and my insides? » And, while saying this, he kissed and caressed him as if he were a reasonable person. The donkey was silent, not knowing what to say, and let himself be kissed and caressed by Sancho, without saying a single word to him. The whole company arrived, and everyone complimented Sancho on having found his grison. (Cervantes, Don Quixote, volume 1, chap. XXX)

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A drawing in perfect state of conservation whose manner, in all the nuances of the brown wash, at the tip of the brush, is very well mastered. Although many artists have illustrated the most famous of picaresque novels, we have not found comparable style and composition in the numerous illustration databases consulted.

The provenance of this drawing could possibly provide an interesting lead and allows a dating, with certainty, in the first half of the 19th century. Indeed, this sheet comes from the album amicorum of Adèle de Maillé La Tour Landry (1787-1850), Countess d'Hautefort, who was the female companion of Madame la Duchesse de Berry (1798-1870). The proposed attribution to Louise Joséphine Sarazin de Belmont comes from the fact that this painter was a close friend of Duchesse de Berry and she exhibited, at the Salon de Douai in 1821, a painting entitled Sancho finding his donkey, which must have been in the vein of its animated landscapes (see the catalogue entry from the Salon). We add in the photo gallery two comparisons with works by Sarazin de Belmont, the first one for the vaporous treatment of the mountain landscape, the second one for the silhouette of the horse, with completely identical leg movements between this drawing and the painting presented on sale at Sotheby's Monaco in 1986.

Could this be the memory of a Salon composition, now lost?
Whatever the case, this drawing is a fine example of the literary and romantic spirit of the first half of the 19th century in France and its masterful manner suggests a very fine hand.