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An allegory of love: a putto, bust-length, holding an arrow ( recto ); A seated putto and a self-portrait ( verso ) signed (?) 'P.P. Prud'hon 1809' and on the mount 'Qui que tu sois, voici ton Maitre, Il le fut, l'est ou le doit être' black and white chalk on blue paper, watermark DLC 1780 127/8 x 97/8 in. (327 x 249 mm.) PROVENANCE Didot; Paris, 6 April 1825, lot 193. Henri Didier, 15 June 1868. Sommier. LITERATURE J. Guiffrey, 'L'oeuvre de Pierre-Paul Prud'hon', Archives de l'art fran‡ais, 1924, nos. 50 and 815. EXHIBITION Paris, Catalogue des tableaux et dessins de l'ecole fran‡aise principalement du XVIII e siŠcle tir‚s de collections d'amateurs et expos‚s au profit de la caisse de secours des Artistes peintres, sculpteurs, architectes et dessinateurs, Paris, 1860, no. 58. NOTES This drawing was described in the Didot sale of 1825, just two years after the artist's death as 'l'Amour tenant une flŠche. DerriŠre ce dessin, on voit, outre son portrait [that of Prud'hon], un enfant nu dessin‚ par lui, et il le retouchait encore peu avant sa mort'. The seated girl on the verso was used for the putto seated on the right of the panel of Le G‚nie des Plaisirs painted by Prud'hon for the Hôtel de Lannoy in Paris in 1798-1801. The panel was sold in Paris on 10 April 1992, lot 68. Another self-portrait of the artist, in pen and ink, is in the Louvre, J. LaveissiŠre, Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur, exhib. cat., Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais and elsewhere, 1997, no. 47. The recto is part of a group of allegorical drawings on love. A putto holding a torch is in the Baltimore Museum of Art and another with an arrow is in the Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, S. LaveissiŠre, op. cit., no. 84 and fig. 85a.