Large Allegorical Painting The Seven Deadly Sins By Ducrot

Large allegorical painting - The Seven Deadly Sins - signed Ducrot

French school of the XXᵉ century

Spectacular and striking pictorial composition depicting an allegory of the Seven Deadly Sins, treated in an expressive and abundant register, on the border between late symbolism and a certain narrative expressionism.

The work is distinguished by a remarkable iconographic density: a central figure, richly adorned, surrounded by a multitude of grotesque figures, grimacing masks and tormented faces, seems to embody a humanity dominated by its vices. Around him, an accumulation of bodies, looks and gestures evokes the seven sins - pride, avarice, lust, envy, gluttony, anger and sloth - translated with great plastic freedom and a definite dramatic intensity.

The palette, dominated by warm tones - deep reds, ochres, browns and golds - accentuates the dramatic tension of the scene. The thick, worked pictorial material contributes to this impression of tumult and density, giving the whole an almost sculptural relief.

Signed "Ducrot" lower right.

Artist yet to be precisely identified: it will be advisable to cross-reference this signature with existing corpora in order to refine the attribution.