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Etienne Sabatier (1810-70)

Cavalcadores c.1831-43

Oil on canvas | 74.9 x 112.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external) | RCIN 403722

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  • Very little is known of Étienne Sabatier’s career, leaving much to be deduced from this work. He was a pupil of Baron Gros (1771-1835) and Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (1803-60); the second of these two artists seems to have had the greater impact on his style. Decamps used a dry, thick paint layer and strong contrasts of tone to convey a heavy tactile style of landscape, which Sabatier here emulates, while also adopting his structured ‘terracing’ of foreground, middle ground and distance, a convention ultimately derived from Nicolas Poussin. The frieze-like arrangement of cattle and riders here reinforces the Classical character of the scene. Decamps is famous for his orientalist views, but he also depicted Italian subjects, where traditionally-dressed shepherds are given a dignity to match the grandeur of the campagna. Sabatier’s heroic drovers would seem to be a Hispanic equivalent. Many French and British artists at this date treated Italian and Iberian as well as Oriental subjects; usually the message is the same - that these regions preserve an ancient and noble life-style, to be contrasted with metropolitan Paris or London.

    The title ‘Cavalcadores’ comes from the Osborne inventory of 1876 and is the Catalan word for ‘Riders’; the same source describes the scene as ‘Spanish or Mexican drovers collecting a herd of cattle’. We can assume that an original French (or indeed English) audience were intended to guess this meaning (it sounds like ‘cavalcade’) and that it would convey the idea of a picturesque or heroic order of men, rather like a ‘gaucho’ or ‘vaquero’. It is uncertain if any specific region is intended, the scene is so ideal and ‘timeless’, but it may be Catalonia with its characteristic hill-towns and Pyrenean foothills in the background.

    Provenance

    Purchased by Queen Victoria in 1843; recorded at Osborne House, 1876

  • Medium and techniques

    Oil on canvas

    Measurements

    74.9 x 112.0 cm (support, canvas/panel/stretcher external)

    99.8 x 136.9 x 9.2 cm (frame, external)


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