Currently not on view
An Angel Praying in the Garden of Olives,
1840
Théodore Chassériau, French, born Saint-Domingue, 1819–1856
2007-22
The young Chassériau received his first commission, for the altarpiece of the church of Saint Jean d’Angély, at the age of twenty-one. In his interpretation of Christ in the Garden of Olives, Jesus is visited by three angels: an angel with a chalice, below; an angel in the center (represented in this study); and an angel with a cross, above. The angels above and below symbolize Christ’s Passion, while this angel brings heaven’s response to his agony and strengthens him for the ordeal. As part of his working process, Chassériau painted a full-scale study, or model, of each angel. This advanced stage of his preparation is represented by the present painting; the studies for the other two angels are in private collections.
More About This Object
Information
Title
An Angel Praying in the Garden of Olives
Dates
1840
Maker
Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
92 × 66 cm (36 1/4 × 26 in.)
frame: 114.9 × 88.6 × 6.3 cm (45 1/4 × 34 7/8 × 2 1/2 in.)
Credit Line
Museum purchase, Fowler McCormick, Class of 1921, Fund
Object Number
2007-22
Signatures
Signed lower left: T. Chassériau
Culture
Type
Subject
Private collection, France; Christie's, New York, 19th Century European Art, October 26, 2005, lot 147; [Jack Kilgore & Co., Inc.]; 2007 purchase by Princeton University Art Museum
- Princeton University Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007), p. 349
-
"Acquisitions of the Princeton University Art Museum 2007," in "More than one: photographs in sequence," special issue, Record of the Princeton University Art Museum 67 (2008): p. 96-119.
, p. 100 (illus.); p. 102
