The Real and the Spiritual: Nineteenth-Century French Drawings from the Musee Des Beaux-Arts De Lyon

This illustrated catalogue (including 15 colour plates) presents work by many of the greatest names in 19th-century French art - Corot, Courbet, Delacroix, Gericault, Ingres, Millet and Rodin - in addition to sheets by artists of the school of Lyon who are little-known outside France. The contents include an introduction by Philippe Durey, director of the museum, a complete description and an illustration of each sheet, biographical notes on 24 Lyonnais artists and a bibliography. The Musee des Beaux-Arts de Lyon, housed in a former Benedictine convent, is the most complete of the "small Louvres" that large French cities tried to create in the 19th century. Its Department of Drawings holds about 4,000 sheets from the Italian, Northern and especially the French schools. The 19th century is particularly well represented and it is from this rich collection that works were selected for an exhibit organised by the Frick Art Museum in Pittsburgh. A major theme of the catalogue is the influence of Ingres. He is represented by four drawings, including a pair of portraits of his favourite student, Hyppolyte Flandrin and his wife and a preparatory study for one of five versions of his famous "Raphael and La Fornarina". Flandrin is represented along with his two brothers, Paul and Auguste. In all, eight of the 45 artists in the catalogue were trained by Ingres or one of his students.