Fusain

LOUIS-MARIE SICARD, KNOWN AS SICARDI
(Avignon, 1743 – Paris, 1825)

Putto with Revolutionary Attributes

Drawing heightened with gouache — Circa 1793

Dimensions: approximately 60 × 40 cm (sight size)

This work takes on its full meaning in light of its author's singular career. Once the appointed miniaturist of Louis XVI and portraitist of the royal family, Sicardi reinvented himself at the turning point of the Revolution, adapting his talent to the new commissions of the age. It is within this context of historic upheaval that this gouache-heightened drawing finds its place, dated to 1793 — the very year of the Terror.

The composition depicts a putto with revolutionary attributes, an allegorical figure blending the Baroque tradition of the winged child with Republican symbolism. Standing in a confident, dynamic pose, he raises in his right hand a laurel wreath, symbol of civic glory, while his left hand grasps a revolutionary pike, the emblematic attribute of the sans-culottes and of popular sovereignty. A warm drapery animates the figure and lends the scene an upward, almost triumphal movement.

The treatment in shades of brown and sepia, heightened with touches of gouache, bears witness to the accomplished skill of a court miniaturist turned illustrator of the new ideals. The dark background, rendered in broad masses, draws all attention to the central figure.

The work is housed in its period frame of green-painted moulded wood, with a beige fabric mat.