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JEAN-FRANÇOIS HEIM
TABLEAUX - DESSINS - SCULPTURES
JACQUES BARRABAND
Aubusson 1768 - Lyon 1809
French school
TWO COCKS FIGHTING OVER A TUFTED HEN
Oil on canvas
H. 0, 89 m; W. 1,17 m.
Signed lower left: Barraband
Bears the trace of an old label on the back
DATE: ca. 1800
PROVENANCE:
Acquired by a private collector in Nice in November 1958
Italy, Private collection
LITTERATURE:
L'Observateur du Musée Napoléon, Paris, 1806, p. 7, n° 15.
Robert Guinot, Jacques Barraband, peintre sous Napoléon Ier, Paris, 2002, p. 54.
EXHIBITED
Salon of 1814, Paris, n° 33.
Jacques Barraband was born in Aubusson to a family that had been documented in the
town since the 16th century and was baptised on 31 August 1768. His father, Jacques
Barraband, a painter and maker of carpets, is mentioned as one of the five main users of the
high warp tapestry technique. The young child undoubtedly attended one of the town’s two
drawing schools from an early age, which accepted pupils as early as the age of seven. After
graduating, Jacques Barraband created cartoons for his father before leaving for Paris. There,
he attended classes at the Académie Royale de Peinture where he was the pupil of Joseph
Laurent Malaine, a flower painter to Louis XVI at the Gobelins factory between 1787 and
1793. The following years were undoubtedly quite difficult. After the dismantling of the
factories in 1793, the emigration of some families and the anxiety of the period, there were
fewer clients. This reduction in activity led Barraband to diversify his skills: easel painting,
tapestry cartoons, decorations for porcelain.
In 1706 thanks to his talents as a draughtsman, he was asked to illustrate Le Vaillant’s
Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux d’Afrique. This was the beginning of a long and prolific
association. One of the highlights of Barraband’s career is undoubtedly his collaboration on
natural history publications prepared by Le Vaillant. Indeed, he supplied the majority of the
Ancienne adresse : Utengasse 52, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
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illustrations for his Histoire Naturelle des Perroquets, Histoire Naturelle des Oiseaux de
Paradis et des Rolliers suivie de celles des Toucans et des Barbus, Paris 1803 and Histoire
Naturelle des Pomerops et des Guépiers… faisant suite à celle des Oiseaux de Paradis, Paris
1806.
This represents over three hundred drawings in gouache and watercolour. Some series
were added to by Auguste Pelletier when Barraband could not provide the drawings, probably
due to health problems. In addition to their undeniable beauty, these watercolours have a level
of scientific precision that few ornithological artists have reached since then.
Among Barraband’s other projects connected with publications, Buffon’s Histoire
Naturelle should be mentioned, and the organization of material collected by the Institut
d’Egypte and published from 1800 in the Mémoires d’Egypte. Barraband’s skill led his
colleague Gault de Saint-Germain to say after his death that he “could be counted among the
number of those who have spread a taste for natural history that owes a large part of its
progress to his association with painting.”
This activity was however only appreciated among a small circle of connoisseurs. It
appears that the turning point in the artist’s career is the industrial exhibition organized in
1798 by the Minister of the Interior, François de Neufchâteau. There, Barraband exhibited the
painting Pheasant and Parrots, as well as birds painted on porcelain for the Dilh et Guerhard
factory. He began then to work more and more. Percier and Fontaine asked him to make
paintings for the decorations they were creating, for example for the dining room of the
Chateau de Saint-Cloud in 1804. In 1808, he painted the ceiling of a portable cabinet in
mahogany for Joseph Bonaparte who was king of Spain at the time. He continued to supply
cartoons for the Gobelins and the Savonnerie factories. He sent works, which were principally
of birds, to the industrial exhibitions and the Salon between 1800 and 1806. On 25 January
1807, Jacques Barraband was appointed professor at the Ecole Spéciale des Arts et Dessin in
Lyon. It is in this city that he died on 1 October 1809.
Jacques Barraband’s oil paintings are rare and therefore precious. The artist expressed
himself more willingly on paper. This is how he essentially showed watercolours at the Salon
from 1798. This was the case in 1804, the year he won a gold medal for the illustrations for
the Description d’Egypte and the Histoires Naturelles by Levaillant. In 1806, he did not
exhibit anything at the Salon. However, this is the year that L’Observateur at the Musée
Napoléon commented on Two Cocks fighting over a Tufted Hen. The journal wrote that “this
painting is comparable to the best that he does in this genre.” It considerd Barraband to be
“the La Fontaine of painting” (“Barraband you charm our eyes…”). It is this magnificent
painting in which Barraband “robs nature of its fine and always successful contours”, that we
discover over two centuries later, perfectly conserved and completely fresh.
Barraband, in his early years, painted in oil, as a few paintings of the end of the 1780s
show, especially those by the Aubusson tapestry maker Picon de Laubard. He began at a very
young age to take an interest in tapestry in the family workshop and then painting on
porcelain, as is shown by the magnificent Still Life with Pheasant and Parrots an oil on wood
Ancienne adresse : Utengasse 52, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
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Phone +41 61 681 35 35 - Mobile +41 78 955 77 77
Fax +41 61 681 75 70 - [email protected] - www.galerieheim.ch
JEAN-FRANÇOIS HEIM
TABLEAUX - DESSINS - SCULPTURES
and porcelain by Dihl and Guerhard exist. Several paintings on wood or canvas, such as the
one in the Musée des Beaux-Arts of Quimper, are not signed, but are attributed to him. They
are dated even less often.
Two Cocks fighting over a Tufted Hen bears Barraband’s signature, but not the date.
Of course, this work predates 1806. In view of the exceptional technical skill, the rigour of the
composition, the beauty and light of the colours, it can be considered to come from his period
of full maturity that includes the end of the 1790s and the very beginning of the 19th century.
After the appearance of the Histoires Naturelle des Perroquets Barraband devoted most of his
talent from 1801 to gouache works and drawings for luxurious books. He was also a
renowned teacher.
Barraband’s works were appreciated by Napoleon I and Joséphine de Beauharnais and
also by private collectors. During his lifetime, he was a sought after and expensive painter.
In this work, Barraband embodies the summit of realistic ornithological art. His
rendering of the feathers is exceptional while the cocks, in a restrained décor that is in tune
with its time, seem to be moving. The colours vibrate, the eyes sparkle, and the blue sky bring
serenity to a scene which effectively brings us back to Jean de La Fontaine.i
Breeds of hens with their descriptions (or standards) appeared in France during the
1850s. Nevertheless, the tufted hen can be considered to be a gold laced Paduan hen with
black borders, a race developed in Europe that is characterised by its voluminous comb. Its
plumage is remarkable: each feather is ochre with a black border that contrasts with the
general colour.
The two cocks can be considered ancestors of the Redcap, an English breed that has a
very large Rose-type comb, which is very broad and includes small regular tips and a unique
red colour with black glitter. The name Redcap comes from this immense red comb.ii
i
Robert Guinot
We are grateful to Mr Jean-Claude Periquet, head of the Société Centrale d’Aviculture de France, for this
information.
ii
Ancienne adresse : Utengasse 52, 4058 Basel, Switzerland
Nouvelle adresse à partir d’avril : ANDLAUER HOF, MÜNSTERPLATZ 17, 4051 BASEL, SWITZERLAND
Phone +41 61 681 35 35 - Mobile +41 78 955 77 77
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