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Dimensions: 34.8 by 22.4cm., 13½ by 8¾in.
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Provenance: Lauth Collection, Toulouse
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Literature: Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, Monographie et Nouveau catalogue de l'oeuvre achevé, Paris-Courbevoie, 1998, p. 375, no. 314, illustrated
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Notes: PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Executed circa 1882, the present work depicts the moment in Greek myth where Leda, wife of the King of Sparta, is seduced by the enamoured Zeus in the guise of a swan. A popular subject with Renaissance painters such as Michelangelo and Leonardo, Moreau revisited this classical scene, rendering it in watercolour with vibrant, sumptuous colours resembling mother of pearl and lapis lazuli.
The subject of Leda and the swan particularly captivated Moreau as he painted it several times in the 1870s and 1880s. In an oil of 1875 he depicts the swan in a submissive pose at Leda's feet. Another very large composition, now in the Musée Gustave Moreau in Paris (fig. 1), places the emphasis on the swan's divine identity, with a halo behind it and cherubs approaching it with a crown. In another, more intimate work of 1875 in watercolour and ink (fig. 2), Leda is presented in the same posture as in the present work, albeit with arms modestly folded in front of her body.
In the 1870s Moreau turned increasingly to watercolour, a medium in which he found scope for the free play of his gifts as a colourist and his powers of invention. In fact, in his lifetime Moreau was appreciated as much for his bold and fluid watercolours as for his paintings, which were sometimes considered overly elaborate and stiff in execution. Moreau mainly used watercolour as a medium to explore the potential of colour. The striking colour harmonies and in particular the exquisite deep blue of the sky and the brilliant white of the swan's plumage and Leda's skin, lend this work a striking freshness.
The importance Moreau placed on colour becomes obvious from his notes on the subject: 'Just as a dream is situated in a suitably coloured atmosphere, so a concept, when it becomes a composition, needs to move in a fittingly coloured setting. There is obviously one particular colour attributed to some part of the picture which becomes a key and governs the other parts. All the figures, their arrangement in relation to one another, the landscape or interior which serves them as background or horizon, their clothes, everything about them in fact must serve to illuminate the general idea and wear its original colour, its livery so to speak' (Gustave Moreau, unpublished notes, quoted in Philippe Julian, Dreamers of Decadence, London, 1971, p. 257).
Whereas most nineteenth-century painters used watercolour for preparatory sketches, Moreau considered them as finished and complete compositions in their own right. Contrary to the majority of painters at the time, he also made the point of exhibiting his watercolours at the annual Paris Salon. His main patrons for this genre were Anthony Roux who commissioned sixty-four watercolours from Moreau illustrating La Fontaine's fables (completed in 1881), and Charles Hayem. In 1886 Moreau held a major exhibition of watercolours at the Galerie Goupil - this was to be the only comprehensive retrospective of his work during his lifetime. FIG. 1: Gustave Moreau, Léda et le cygne, 1865-1875, oil on canvas 220 x 205cm, Musée Gustave Moreau, Paris
digi 361D08101 FIG. 2: Gustave Moreau, Léda et le cygne, 1875, watercolour and ink wash, Musée Gustave Moreau
digi ref 362D08101
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