Ary Scheffer
The Last Communion of Saint Louis1823

Not on view

Oil painting of a dying Crusader knight in a white robe with a red cross surrounded by mourning figures inside a tent, with loose brushwork and a French inscription along the bottom edge

Artist or Maker: Ary Scheffer
Netherlands, Dordrecht, 1795-1858, active France
Title: The Last Communion of Saint Louis
Place Made: Holland
Date Made: 1823
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 18 1/4 × 15 1/4 in. (46.36 × 38.74 cm) Frame: 25 1/4 × 22 1/2 × 3 in. (64.14 × 57.15 × 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: The Ciechanowiecki Collection, Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation
Accession Number: M.2000.179.38
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Provenance: The artist, to; Mme Aubry-Vitet (née Amélie Vitet),(1) 1937. Anonymous (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 6 Mar. 1972, lot 36, as La mort de Saint Louis). Andrew S. Ciechanowiecki (1924–2015), London, by 1980, sold 2000 to; LACMA.

Footnote

(1) Presumably Amélie Aubrey-Vitet (b. ca. 1846), who was married to Eugène Aubrey. Mme Aubrey-Vitet was the sister of the French dramatist and politician Ludovic Vitet (1802–1873) and shared letters between Vitet and Scheffer, as well as her own memories with Scheffer’s biographer. The Vitet family were good friends of Scheffer, and the two families had houses close to each other in Argenteuil. See Kolb 1937. Because she was twelve when the artist died, Mme Aubrey-Vitet may have inherited the painting from her brother or another family member who acquired it directly from Scheffer.
Selected Bibliography: Marandel, J. Patrice. French oil sketches from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 17th century - 19th century. Los Angeles: The Ahmanson Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002.
The Changing Image: Aspects of Nineteenth-Century French Art. Peoria, IL, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1980. catalogue by J. Patrice Marandel (published in Lakeview Museum Bulletin 2, no. 2 [1980])
Walch, Peter, , Joanna R. Barnes, J. Patrice Marandel. French Oil Sketches and the Academic Tradition. New York : American Federation of Arts in association with the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
Kolb, Marthe. Ary Scheffer et son temps, 1795-1858. Paris: Boivin & Cie, 1937
Ewals, Leo. Ary Scheffer: Sa vie et son oeuvre. PhD thesis Catholic University of Nijmegen [now Rabound Univ. Nijmegen], the Netherlands, 1987
Lehmbeck, Leah, editor. Gifts of European Art from The Ahmanson Foundation. Vol. 2, French Painting and Sculpture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.

Ary Scheffer
The Last Communion of Saint Louis1823

Not on view

Artist or Maker: Ary Scheffer
Netherlands, Dordrecht, 1795-1858, active France
Title: The Last Communion of Saint Louis
Place Made: Holland
Date Made: 1823
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: Canvas: 18 1/4 × 15 1/4 in. (46.36 × 38.74 cm) Frame: 25 1/4 × 22 1/2 × 3 in. (64.14 × 57.15 × 7.62 cm)
Credit Line: The Ciechanowiecki Collection, Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation
Accession Number: M.2000.179.38
Classification: Paintings
Collecting Area: European Painting and Sculpture
Provenance: The artist, to; Mme Aubry-Vitet (née Amélie Vitet),(1) 1937. Anonymous (sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 6 Mar. 1972, lot 36, as La mort de Saint Louis). Andrew S. Ciechanowiecki (1924–2015), London, by 1980, sold 2000 to; LACMA.

Footnote

(1) Presumably Amélie Aubrey-Vitet (b. ca. 1846), who was married to Eugène Aubrey. Mme Aubrey-Vitet was the sister of the French dramatist and politician Ludovic Vitet (1802–1873) and shared letters between Vitet and Scheffer, as well as her own memories with Scheffer’s biographer. The Vitet family were good friends of Scheffer, and the two families had houses close to each other in Argenteuil. See Kolb 1937. Because she was twelve when the artist died, Mme Aubrey-Vitet may have inherited the painting from her brother or another family member who acquired it directly from Scheffer.
Selected Bibliography: Marandel, J. Patrice. French oil sketches from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 17th century - 19th century. Los Angeles: The Ahmanson Foundation, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2002.
The Changing Image: Aspects of Nineteenth-Century French Art. Peoria, IL, Lakeview Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1980. catalogue by J. Patrice Marandel (published in Lakeview Museum Bulletin 2, no. 2 [1980])
Walch, Peter, , Joanna R. Barnes, J. Patrice Marandel. French Oil Sketches and the Academic Tradition. New York : American Federation of Arts in association with the University of Pennsylvania Press, 1994.
Kolb, Marthe. Ary Scheffer et son temps, 1795-1858. Paris: Boivin & Cie, 1937
Ewals, Leo. Ary Scheffer: Sa vie et son oeuvre. PhD thesis Catholic University of Nijmegen [now Rabound Univ. Nijmegen], the Netherlands, 1987
Lehmbeck, Leah, editor. Gifts of European Art from The Ahmanson Foundation. Vol. 2, French Painting and Sculpture. Los Angeles: Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 2019.