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signed and inscribed "P. Puvis de C/au comte Joseph Primoli/affectioneusement" lower left and inscribed "DESSIN AG... PLUS TENDRE.../GENEVIEVE DONNE... MARQUES D'UNE/ARDENETE PIEDS... EN RIVIERE/ELLE... RAPPAIT DE SUPRISE.../RATION TOUS CEUX QUI L'APERCEVAINT" lower center- -oil on paper or shaved board laid down on canvas 53 3/4 x 30 in. (136.5 x 76.2 cm.) PROVENANCE A gift from the artist to Count Joseph Primoli Henry Bloome Collection Private Collection, Switzerland (from 1946) Robert Miller Gallery, Inc., New York (until 1985) Private Collection, New York Puvis de Chavannes was an official painter of the Third Republic. In 1876 he was given the commission by M. de Chenevieres, the Director of the Beaux-Arts, to decorate the nave and dome of the Pantheon. Earlier on in his training, Puvis had studied under Thomas Couture and, in choosing a subject for his Pantheon commission, he sems to have heeded his former teacher's lessons to depict subjects of French historic and national interest. The Pantheon had originally been built by Louis XV as a church to honor St. Genevieve, the Patron Saint of Paris, and Puvis felt it appropriate to depict scenes from her life along its walls. This was in keeping with the subjects chosen by the other artists who had also been asked to paint murals in the Pantheon: Gallard painted the life of St. Denis and Baudry intended to paint, but never executed, scenes from the life of Joan of Arc. Puvis's audience would have immediately understood the significance of his choice of subject. France had recently suffered a humbling defeat in the Franco-Prussian war and St. Genevieve was credited with consoling and helping the Parisians during the blockade of the city. As history has it, Genevieve was born in Nanterre on the outskirts of Paris in 422 and herded her father's sheep on the slopes of Mont Valerien. She defended her Gaulic people from invasion by the Huns and cured the children of the pious Gauls who came to her for assistance. The Pantheon commission presented Puvis with an opportunity to narrate various stories from her legendary life. Considered a regenetor in France of decorative art, Puvis felt that the function of his murals was simply to decorate and beautify the space with form and color. Stylistically his work followed from his study of the Italian Quattrocento "primitive" masters such as Piero della Francesca and Giotto, from whom he had learned to keep forms simple and to paint landscapes in flat planes. In the simplicity of the Quattrocento masters, he saw a style that allowed for a more direct and spiritual communication with the viewer. He borrowed their hierarchical order in arranging the placement and poses of the figures; the painting is arranged along a tight grid of verticals and horizontals with the most important figure, St. Genevieve, set above and beyond the other mere mortal figures who are shown as the Gaulic family in the lower right corner. Each scene from her early life is set in an Arcadian landscape that represents the environs of Paris with Mont Valerien in the distance. As with the church paintings of these earlier artists, Puvis conceived of his paintings as forming a running narrative of St. Genevieve's life: each segment of her life is depicted within panels separated from one another by a decorative laurel border. He also looked to their use of subdued color to create a sense of harmony and serenity in his painting. Upon their completion, the paintings were lauded by the public and Puvis's stature as a leading muralist was solidified. Our version is a study of one of the panels from this series which he gave directly to Count Primoli.