Louis-félix De La Rue (1730-1777) A Mythological Scene, Drawing Dated 1776

Louis-Félix de La Rue (1730-1777)
A biblical or mythological episode
Signed and dated lower right (under the mount, see photos of the drawing out of frame)
Black ink and black ink wash on paper 21 x 31 cm
In good enough condition, foxings and scattered spots.
Framed: 40 x 50 cm
It is quite difficult to identify with certainty what was the subject of this very rich scene, in which we see the intervention of angels opening a tomb or a monument.
This drawing is very characteristic of the delicate and very personal style of Louis-Félix de La Rue, who was a rather eccentric artistic figure, and who drew his own vision of mythology and ancient history in a pre-romantic, often pessimistic atmosphere as if he had felt that he was living in the last years of a historical era. Louis-Félix de La Rue was born on October 19, 1730 in Paris, where he died on June 24, 1777. He was a draughtsman and sculptor, older brother of Philibert-Benoît de la Rue.
De La Rue was trained in the studio of the celebrated sculptor Lambert-Sigisbert Adam (1700-1759), where he may have met the young Clodion who, although some years Delarue’s junior, also worked under Adam. He won the prix de Rome in 1750 with a bas relief entitled "Abraham rendant grâces à Dieu de la délivrance de son fils" and became pensionnaire of the École royal des élèves protégés between 1752 and 1754. In this role, Delarue presented a group entitled Bacchante qui enivre des enfants and four bas-reliefs of the Saisons figurées par des enfants to the king during an exhibition at Versailles in 1754. Before going to Rome in November 1754, he worked under the direction of Jean-Jacques Bachelier at the Manufacture de Vincennes, where he made several groups of frolicking infants, including two presse-papiers models, referred to as ‘plaques à papiers La Rue’. Upon returning to the Académie de France in Rome, of which Natoire was the then director, he was admitted into the Academy of Saint Luke on 13 September 1760. Subsequently, De La Rue was named Professor, and, in 1762. After 1764, Delarue disappears from the official record and, tragically, is believed to have been plagued by physical frailty and mental illness.