A pastel by Hippolyte Lazerges donated to the Museum of Fine Arts of Orléans!

A pastel by Hippolyte Lazerges (1817–1887), depicting Saint Anne, signed and dated 1850, was recently donated to the Museum of Fine Arts of Orléans by the artist’s great-grandson.

Hippolyte LAZERGES, Saint Anne, 1850, pastel on paper, 65x54.5 cm, Orléans, Museum of Fine Arts.

From the collection of art historian and museum curator Bruno Foucart, this drawing was acquired by the gallery F. Baulme Fine Arts before being sold to the artist’s descendant. During its time at the gallery, a professor of ancient Mesopotamian languages humorously remarked that the text being read by Saint Anne was most likely in Breton, but certainly not in Hebrew!

A major painter of the 19th century, Hippolyte Lazerges distinguished himself particularly in religious and Orientalist genres. In Orléans, he took part in major decorative commissions, producing the decorations for the chapels of the church of Notre-Dame-de-Recouvrance as well as those of the choir of the church of Saint-Laurent. He was also responsible for the ceiling decoration of the municipal theatre, now destroyed.

In Paris, at the church of Saint-Eustache, Lazerges painted the decorations of the chapel of Saint Anne, including Saint Anne Consecrating Her Daughter to God (1849) and The Death of Saint Anne (1851). Because of its clear similarities to these paintings, the pastel can be associated with this decorative cycle.