Legends and mythology:
the 1727 competition generation.
Public opinion has always been partial to opposition between artists such as the contest between Jean-François de Troy and François Lemoyne. The competition inaugurated in 1727 to oppose them resulted in a skilfully engineered result that avoided deciding between them. The critically-acclaimed de Troy, from a family of Toulouse-born artists, is represented in the Musée des Augustins by two cartoons from a cycle of tapestries illustrating the legend of Jason (Death of Creusa and The Golden Fleece). A fertile inventor of tapestry compositions, he was, before Boucher, a painter of feminine beauty.
The two paintings in the Changeux collection find the painter at the start of his career, already armed with a tireless capacity for invention. François Lemoyne was a tortured soul. Despite his success (he was commissioned to paint the Hercules ceiling at Versailles), he committed suicide in his prime. This landscape is the only record of his talent in this domain.
Favanne is a rarer painter with a delicate talent, here at the height of his career. Carle Van Loo was the King's principal painter at the end of the reign of Louis XV, however Bathsheba bathing painted at the end of the 1720s is a masterpiece from his early career. The subject is interpreted as a romantic scene.
Rivalz was Toulouse's principal painter between 1700 and his death in 1735. After a long stay in Rome, he developed a highly expressive form of classicism in Toulouse. For many years, the original version of The Death of Paetus and Arria was only known through engravings. There are several other versions, one of which is held in the Musée des Augustins.
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