In search of Lebel: two attractive eighteenth-century fetes galantes in the National Gallery of Ireland are signed simply 'J. Lebel', an otherwise unidentified French painter. Martin Eidelberg sifts through the many artists with that surname and proposes a solution to the puzzle

Apollo, Sept, 2004 by Martin Eidelberg

It is exciting as well as instructive to rediscover an artist from the past, to reconstruct his career and oeuvre. Such is the case of Jean-Baptiste Lebel, whose name does not appear in histories of eighteenth century painting, although some of his paintings and drawings have been published with modest fanfare. (1)

Two of his canvases, Music and The dance, charming fetes galantes, are in the National Gallery of Ireland (Figs. 2-4). Both show men and women in the standard attitudes of courting, music making, and dancing that inform the work of Antoine Watteau's followers. Lebel's own petite maniere style is quite distinctive, as in the elongated limbs, diminutive heads, broad foreheads, and insistent smiles of his characters.

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Both pictures in Dublin are signed 'J. Lebel', yet the identity of the artist, strangely enough, has eluded historians. The early history of Music and The dance is unknown but, given the rarity of this artist's works and their early presence in the British Isles, it is tempting to think that they can be identified with the 'Two small Pictures ... Lebell' that appeared in Andrew Hay's London sale of 1738. (2) On that occasion no first name was given the artist.

At some point in the eighteenth century, the pendants seem to have been bought by Joseph Leeson (1701-83), the first Earl of Milltown, or his son, also named Joseph (1730-1801). The first reference to the canvases in the Leesons' country house, Russborough in Ireland, is found in Neale's early nineteenth-century publication of notable country seats, where they are listed among the paintings in the dining room, described as 'Music and Dancing--Lebel.' (3)

As is evident, the artist was still being presented without a first name. By 1902, when the widow of the sixth Earl of Milltown presented both paintings to the National Gallery of Ireland, they were ascribed to Antoine Lebel. (4) In its 1914 catalogue, the museum listed them under the name of Clement Louis Marie Anne Lebel. (5) Subsequently the Benezit Dictionnaire chose to respect the form of the Dublin paintings' signature and awarded 'J. Lebel' a distinct place, (6) whereas the museum continued to assign the paintings to Clement. Thirty years ago, when these paintings were presented in the pages of APOLLO, they were ascribed to Jean Etienne Lebel. (7) Recently the museum returned to an attribution to Antoine Lebel, still with little discussion of the problem. Lastly, the most recent edition of the Benezit Dictionnaire declared the paintings to be the work of Jean Lebel. (8) Clearly, the artist's identity needs to be resolved.

The Dublin pendants are extremely close to a painting in the National-museum, Stockholm (Fig. 6), and two works on paper in the Swedish Institute, Paris (Figs. 5, 7). (9) The Stockholm picture and one of the drawings show a woman searching for fleas. The remaining drawing (and a lost painting) show the same model adjusting her garter. Of significance for our study, the two renderings oftheflea seeker are signed 'J. Lebel', while the other drawing is signed 'Lebel'. All three signatures correspond to those on the Dublin paintings.

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These works have a notable provenance: they were purchased by the Swedish Count Carl Gustav Tessin during a trip to Paris in 1739-40. Tessin may well have bought them directly from the artist as was his custom, just as he frequently bought drawings and paintings that were related to each other. Nonetheless, the identity of the artist remains problematic. While the compositions were still in Paris, Francois Antoine Aveline (1718-62/80) engraved them, but captioned them simply as having been invented by 'Lebel'. (10) After the paintings and drawings were taken to the Swedish capital and were inventoried in Tessin's collection in 1741, the artist was again listed merely as 'Lebel'. Still later, the two sheets were classified as the works of 'Auth. le Bel', and thus recently both the drawings and painting have been ascribed to Antoine Lebel. At the same time, the 'J' which clearly precedes the family name has rightly brought this identification into question.

Lastly, we might consider two untraced gouache paintings of female street vendors in the tradition of the Cris de Paris. (11) Ono depicted a dealer of small cakes (echaudes) and the other a seller of lottery tickets. These pendants were sold in 1937 from the collection of baron Emmanuel Leonino as works by Jean-Baptiste Lebel. Both were described as being signed and even though the signatures' exact form was not transcribed, it must have included the artist's full name--how else would they have arrived at this otherwise unrecorded (yet correct) name, Jean Baptiste? The two gouaches were not illustrated in the 1937 catalogue, but their appearance is recorded in engravings by Francois Joullain (1697-1778) (Fig. 1). They reveal that the painter was open to the charms of Francois Boucher and French genre painting of the mid century. Frustratingly, the captions on Joullain's prints list the painter's name only as 'Lebel'.