Benouville first exhibited at the Salon in 1838, after studying under Picot, and he remained true to the academic tradition throughout his life. In 1845 he won the Prix de Rome. In 1852, after his return from Rome, he began submitting anecdotal history pieces and religious paintings to the Salons. He collaborated with Amaury Duval on the decoration of the church of Saint-Germaine-en-Laye.
As with the previous sheet the provenance of this red chalk drawing could be pinned down from the record of the Benouville sale given in Aubrun. Lamme paid 85 francs for a lot described as “Etudes pour son tableau des noces de Tobie,” and it seems likely that the painting referred to was Benouville’s grisaille of Tobias’s Wedding Night, which went in the same sale but is now untraceable. It is clear from the description in the auction catalogue, and from the price paid (single drawings at the sale generally fetched considerably less), that the lot consisted of several sheets. The whereabouts of the others is unknown.
Despite the disappearance of Tobias’s Wedding Night, and the fact that there is no other record of the overall composition, the present drawing could be identified by comparison with nine other sketches which Aubrun recognized as preliminary studies for the painting. One, now in the Musée des Beaux Arts in Rouen, shows the girl in the same devout pose, but without the veil.
The Fodor drawing, which illustrates an episode from the apocryphal Book of Tobit, shows Sarah, Tobias’s young bride, sunk in prayer on her wedding night. The technique and style are typical of the preliminary studies which Benouville produced in such large numbers. The disappearance of the grisaille makes it impossible to determine how much the figure would have been enlarged.
( Wiepke Loos)
