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Artist or Maker: Gustave Moreau (Paris 1826-1898)

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Description: Costume design for Phaon from the opera Sapho by Charles Gounod
signed '-G M-' and inscribed '-PHAON.-'
pencil, brown wash, bodycolor heightened with gold on light brown paper
8 7/8 x 6 in. (225 x 157 mm.)

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Notes: Moreau's costume designs for Sapho did not result from a commission but rather a request for advice from Jean-François Regnier, administrator of the Paris Opéra.
A very similar study of the same figure (bearing the inscription at lower left corner 'Opéra de Sapho') is mentionned in Pierre-Louis Mathieu, Gustave Moreau, sa vie, son oeuvre, Fribourg, 1976, p. 343, no. 303 (not located).
Another annotated version is conserved in the collection of Louis-Antoine Prat (P. Rosenberg, De main de maître, trois siècles de dessins français dans la collection Prat, exhib. cat., Ottawa, musée des beaux-arts du Canada, 1990, no. 108).