Jean Guillaume MOITTE (born in Paris in 1746 -1810) Saul sacrificing to the idols before the battle of Geboë or Guilboa Drawing in grey ink wash and brown ink, pen in brown ink, white, grey-indigo and green gouache, retouched with black stone, pasted in full on laid paper with framed fillets. On the reverse of the mount is a late 19th century collector's or exhibition label, no. 327. Drawing dimensions : Height. Height: 41.7 cm Width: 53.5 cm Dimensions of filleted lining : Height Height : 46 cm. Width: 58 cm. Carved and gilded wooden frame stamped CHERIN (Jean Chérin, Paris, d. in 1760) Height 41.7 cm high. Width: 53.5 cm Provenance: France, private collection Note : An Old Testament episode and history of the kings of Israel. The royal anointing conferred on the young Saul by the prophet Samuel encouraged the young king to free his people from the Philistines and subdue the Amalekites. After his many victories, he ensured the unity of the Hebrews, but the Philistines decided to gather a large army to exterminate the Hebrew people. The prophet Samuel had advised the young king to wait for him so that he could offer a sacrifice to Jehovah before the battle. Impatient and worried about the prophet's delay, Saul hastened the battle and, accompanied by a sibyl, officiated at the sacrifice himself to make Samuel's shadow appear. The king was to perish in this last battle, along with his sons, punished for not having obeyed Samuel's advice and for having disobeyed God. He was to be replaced by David. J.-G. Moitte chose to depict Saul offering a sacrifice in Samuel's absence in order to exhort his troops to prepare for battle, who are preparing to leave on the left of the composition. This large drawing dates from the 1770s/1775s, as does Death of Senechus in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which uses a similar, unusual technique combining wash, gouache and bronze powder to give the drawing a painterly appearance. Ours, a combination of green, grey-indigo and white gouache applied in thick brushstrokes and of exceptional dimensions much larger than those of the New York drawing, bears witness to Moitte's ambitions to gain admission to the Académie at the time, and for this reason he chose violent subjects during the 1770s and 1780s, illustrating the tragic fate of heroes from ancient Greece or the Old Testament, as can also be seen in a sheet in the Musée de Besançon, inv. D 2892, Polydore begging Achilles to spare him (280 x 418 mm). *Metropolitan Museum of art, inv. 2001.453 222 x 300 mm cf figure.