Henri LEHMANN  (Kiel 1814 - 1882 Paris)

Allegory of human life

Circa. 1839-49

Monogram  HL  (L nested in H) lower left

Oil on canvas (relined), 88.5 x 129 cm  ; 34 3/4 in. by 50 2/3 in., In its original frame

PROVENANCE

Private collection, Mansion for several generations and until 2017.

Bibliography

Unpublished

In this unusual iconography, unique in Henri Lehmann’s œuvre, we suggest that the viewer is being offered an illustrated microcosm of a complete life, reduced to its most important stages. Lehmann presents himself as an erudite painter of the ages of man, using a concept inherited from antiquity, no doubt enriched with a scholarship whose details are unknown to us. Sketches of a kneeling figure (fig.1 & fig.2) similar to the old man in the present composition are itemised in the catalogue raisonné, although it has not proved possible to match them to a known composition.

Lehmann was a pupil of Ingres, the great master of classicism, who passed on his love of antiquity and the Italian Renaissance, as well as the importance of becoming familiar with them in order to draw and paint with accuracy. Born in 1814, Lehmann trained for a time with his father before joining the studio of the master he would never really abandon. His German origins prevented him from competing for the Grand Prix but he exhibited at the Salon from 1835 onwards. In Paris, he lived with his uncle, a wealthy banker and art lover, whose salons he frequented. Here he associated with Chopin, Liszt and Gérard. These social occasions were an opportunity for him to promote his recognised talents as a portrait painter and to establish strong connections with his models. It was in this way that he developed a close friendship with Liszt and his mistress Marie d’Agoult: Lehmann’s portraits of the couple are now in the Musée Carnavalet.

After Ingres became director of the Villa Medici, a post he held between 1835 and 1841, Lehmann remained very close to his master and continued to send him his compositions in order to obtain advice from the mentor he admired. He finally joined him in Rome in 1838. 

In the present composition, Lehmann pays a double tribute to his master. Ingres was a great admirer of the painters of the Italian Renaissance, regarding them as having reached the apotheosis of pictorial art, and was much inspired by them in his own compositions. Through his languid figure in the foreground, Lehmann reminds us that like his master he is familiar with Venice and the artists of the Cinquecento. While his focus is not on the sensuality of the female figure as painted by Giorgione and Titian, the link is evident in the pose. Further, with the layering of horizontal space, Henri Lehmann draws the viewer’s eye from scene to scene, increasing the sense of depth. While a broad interpretation is needed in order to understand the painting, the ambiguous symbolism that stems from the absence of any title given by the artist perpetuates the viewer’s questions, recalling certain Venetian works.

Beyond this inspiration, Lehmann was almost certainly influenced by the Neo-Gréc movement, whose followers saw themselves as being in the Ingres tradition. Ingres himself did not remain impervious to the trend and committed himself to it for a time. Reference to antiquity, which had been important since the eighteenth century, thus evolved around the 1840s. Until then, antiquity had been represented with austere compositions, but now it became a theatre of idyll and dreams, combining the serious with the suggestive. Lehmann was undoubtedly inspired by Neo-Gréc in the present painting, which shows the stages of life unfolding. Thus, it might be tempting to see a life beginning in the background, where two young people are being invited to join a circle of dancers, and its progress to the next stage manifested in the standing couple seen from the back, whose physical connection seems to anticipate the foreground scene. Here, they have reached adulthood, symbolised by the arrival of a child. Finally, the twilight of life is expressed in the figures sitting at the base of a tree, with the soft light of the growing darkness falling upon them. 

The neoclassical frieze construction is here broken by the two couples on the right, but the teaching of drawing as the basis for everything is still apparent in Lehmann’s figures, finely delineated with gracefully floating drapery. The palette too has become warmer and more varied. Throughout his career, many critics judged Lehmann’s colours to be cold, arid, even archaic, but here on the contrary the warmth of the tints draws us into the ambience of a summer evening. Without succumbing to melancholy, life continues to resonate in the music and dance whose echo fills the furthest planes.

Fig. 1.   Henri LEHMANN

Crouching Character Study 

Pencil, 28 x 22 cm

Current location unknown

FIG.2.  Henri LEHMANN

Study of a kneeling and draped woman

Black Chalk, 22,2 x 15,3 cm

   PHOTOGRAPHS' DETAILS