JEAN-BAPTISTE FREDERIC DESMARAIS (PARFOIS NOMMÉ DESMARETS) (Paris 1756-Carrare 1813) SCENE FROM THE ILLIAD Canvas Scene from the Illiad, canvas 45 x 55 CM PROVENANCE - Tajan sale, Paris, 21 October 1999, lot 130, as Guillon-Lethière; - Tajan sale, Paris, 18 June 2007, lot 102, as attributed to Guillon-Lethière. Our composition is typical of the neoclassicism of Joseph-Benoît Suvée (1743-1807), Victor Maximilien Potain (1759-1841) and Jean-Pierre Saint-Ours (1752-1809), i.e. a movement not marked by the Davidian style. Although the action is all in variations of white, cream and grey touches, a few notes of red, at the level of the upside-down tripod, liven things up. We propose to return it to Desmarais around 1785, by comparison with the drawing The Death of Pyrrhus, kept in the Musée du Louvre (signed and dated 1785, RF 41206) and with the sketch for The Death of Camille (Montpellier, Musée Fabre), the painting with which he won the Grand Prix in 1785, as a pupil of Gabriel-François Doyen. During his stay in Rome and then Florence, his style changed, becoming less Baroque and more severe. Desmarais died young, aged twenty-seven, and produced few large-scale works. We do know of several drawings and sketches by him on subjects close to our own, violent scenes taken from the Illiad, and some fine portraits, such as the one of the sculptor Antoine-Denis Chaudet acquired by the Château de Versailles last June.