Malvina and the Bards
About this artwork
A pupil of Jacques-Louis David, Girodet trained in France and Rome, but drew less on classical sources than on the epic myths of the Gaelic bard Ossian. The poems of Ossian, the creation of the Scottish writer James Macpherson, were published in Edinburgh in the 1760s and became the equivalent in northern Europe of Homer’s classical tales. Napoleon was particularly obsessed with this cycle of poems and in about 1801 he commissioned Ossianic subjects from Girodet and François Gérard for his château at Malmaison to the west of Paris. In this small, quick sketch, Girodet illustrates a scene in which Malvina mourns the death of her lover, Oscar, son of Ossian. To distract her from her grief, Ossian sings of his own heroic exploits in Croma, an ancient kingdom in Ireland.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Triosson (1767 - 1824) French
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title:Malvina and the Bards
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date created:About 1802
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materials:Oil on panel
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measurements:24.50 x 31.00 cm; Framed: 40.00 x 46.70 x 8.40 cm / 4.00 kg
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 2004
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accession number:NG 2761
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gallery:
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subject:
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Triosson
Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Triosson
Girodet had a difficult and at times unpleasant personality, although he was one of the most talented and individual of all Jacques-Louis David’s major pupils. He entered David’s studio in 1784, winning the Prix de Rome in 1789. He left for Rome in 1790, where he began to move away from the strict...