Domingos Antonio de Sequeira (1768-1837) - Lot 11

Domingos Antonio de Sequeira (1768-1837) Resting during the Flight into Egypt, 1824 Oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right 100 x 81 cm Exhibition: Paris, Salon of 1824 [Outside catalog] Very fine period frame Condition report: The canvas has a network of fine cracks running across its entire surface. On some occasions, these cracks have caused the paint layer to shrink, leading to the creation of small cracks (particularly in the upper left-hand corner), which have been rather clumsily filled in by an earlier restoration, resulting in some slight retouching (photographs of the canvas taken under violet light are available). Domingos Antonio de Sequeira was a Portuguese painter born in Lisbon in 1768 and died in Rome in 1837. Appointed court painter in Lisbon in 1802, he is best known for his portraits of the family of King John VI. The political upheavals in Portugal during the first quarter of the 19th century prompted him to go into exile in France at the time of the absolutist counter-revolution of Vila-Francada. Settling in Paris in 1824, the painter, who called himself Le chevalier de Sequeira, lived at 94 rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré. He participated in the Salon of 1824, exhibiting a remarkable painting: Sujet tiré de la vie du Camoëns ou La mort de Camoens, which would have earned him a gold medal and appreciation as a leading Romantic painter. This painting is now considered lost in Brazil. He eventually settled in Rome in 1826, where he died some ten years later, without ever having seen Portugal again. Our painting is an important rediscovery, since, as the date attests, it is the second known canvas from his Parisian sojourn. In the important monographic work devoted to the painter, Sequeira Um Portugues na mudança dos tempos [A Portuguese in Changing Times], published on the occasion of the January-March 1987 exhibition at Lisbon's National Museum of Ancient Art by the Ministry of Culture and the Portuguese Institute of Museums, a mention of our painting appears in the chronology for the year 1824, where it is stated that Le repos pendant la fuite en Égypte was added to the picture rails of the Louvre, after the inauguration of the Salon: Agosto, 25. Abertura do Salon. Sequeira expoe a Morte de Camoes e, ja depois da inauguracao do certame, um Repouso na fuga para o Egypto, which may explain why our painting is not mentioned in the Salon catalog. This painting, previously unseen on the market, is a remarkable example of the tenderness of a passionate religious sentiment, mixed with a romantic emotionality.