Study for Judith and Holopherne, tableau preserved at the museum of the Art schools of Marseilles (No 303, Henri Regnault (1843-1871), exhibition catalogue Saint-Cloud Municipal Museum, 1992, under No 27). The tableau was carried out in Rome in 1868-9 and constituted the second trip to Rome that any pupil had carried out during his stay as boarder of the Academy in France. For the figure of Judith the artist used two models, his Lagraine servant then, during his travels to Spain, a cabaret singer, Dolores. It was the latter who probably posed for this drawing. ' It will be impossible for me to find another beautiful head elsewhere', he wrote to his father in connection with the model (Saint-Cloud exhibition catalogue, p. 62).
In a letter to his friend Duparc, Regnault indicated that he wished to represent the moment when Judith hesitates to kill Holopherne: 'It is thus this flash of human and female feeling that I sought to create with much reserve, not wanting to paint it by the expression of the face, that would leave impassive that which had not yet happened; to express what Judith does not feel just at one moment… thus in the tightening in the throat, in a light rising of the shoulders and the poise of the hand that I wanted to show everything' (Ibid citation, p. 62).
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Henri Regnault was the son of Victor Regnault. He showed exceptional abilities as a draughtsman from an early age. After a traditional classical education he was sent in 1860 to the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris, where he studied with Louis Lamothe (1822–69) and Alexandre Cabanel. In 1866 he won the Prix de Rome competition with Thetis Giving the Weapons of Vulcan to Achilles (Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris). In Italy he began several other ambitious history paintings, including Automedon Taming the Horses of Achilles (1868; Boston, Museum of Fine Art; sketch, 1868, Paris, Musee d’Orsay) and Judith and Holofernes (1869; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Marseille).
In 1868 Regnault travelled with his friend Georges Clairin to Madrid, where he was permitted to continue his work on a Prix de Rome bursary. He studied Velázquez and Goya in the Museo del Prado and mingled with the upper and lower classes of the Spanish capital. He was active as a portrait painter, and his most important work of the period is the theatrical equestrian portrait of the liberal revolutionary Gen. Juan Prim y Prats (1869; Paris, Musee d’Orsay), a very large painting refused by the General but shown successfully at the Paris Salon of 1869. In Granada he admired the virtuoso work of the academic painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal and painted the large, grisly Execution without Judgement under the Moorish Kings of Granada (1870; Paris, Musee d’Orsay), which uses the Alhambra as a background. This work, and a copy (1870; Paris, Ecole Normale Supérieure) of Velázquez’s Surrender of Breda (1634–5; Madrid, Prado), served as Regnault’s formal student submissions at the Salon of 1870.
From Granada Regnault travelled to Morocco. By 1870 he and Clairin were established in Tangier, where they constructed a house and a studio for the execution of large paintings. Regnault was delighted with the climate, light and culture of Tangier and planned to remain there indefinitely. He enlarged the canvas of a bust-length portrait begun in Italy to paint a naturalistic Oriental genre piece entitled Salome (1869–70; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). This painting, with its unusual colour scheme of black and yellow, caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Salon in 1870. Regnault also made colourful oil sketches of traditional Orientalist subjects: Departure for the Powder-play (1870; untraced) and Excursion of the Pasha at Tangier (1870; untraced).
At the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War Regnault, who because of his Prix de Rome bursary was exempt from military duty, volunteered for service as a foot-soldier. He was killed in action at the age of 27 shortly before the end of the war. A memorial exhibition was presented at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in 1872, and a monument by Henri Chapu was placed in the courtyard there. Regnault’s posthumous fame was very great, and he was the subject of several commemorative monographs. In addition to his talent, Regnault’s attractive personality, his ability as a horseman and his tragic early death were often cited. The few pictures by him still in private collections at his death, such as Salome, changed hands at high prices. Regnault’s historical position (as distinct from his personal celebrity) is based on his great gifts as a practitioner of the academic style, both in history painting and in Orientalist subjects. Although he shared the Impressionists’ taste for strong colour, he also favoured the profusion of background detail and high degree of finish that made his work acceptable to the Académie des Beaux-Arts. The naturalism of such works as Execution without Judgement and Salome, which seemed daring to Regnault’s contemporaries, with hindsight appears well within the boundaries of official 19th-century art.
Collections
Regnault is represented in the following collections: Ecole Normale Supérieure, Paris; Museum of Fine Art, Boston; Musee d’Orsay, Paris; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Musee des Beaux-Arts, Marseille; Prado, Madrid; amongst others.
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