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

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

sum of two units of his canvases, Music and The dance, charming s galantes, are in the National Gallery of Ireland (Figs. 2-4) the one and the other 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 hold petite maniere style is quite distinctive, as in the elongated limbs, diminutive heads, broad foreheads, and insistent smiles of his characters.

[FIGURES 2-4 OMITTED]

one as well as the other pictures in Dublin are signed 'J Lebel', however the identity of the artist, strangely enough, has elud historians. The early history of Music and The dance is unknown on the contrary given the rarity of this artist's works and their early vicinity 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) upon that occasion no first name was given the artist.

At more [i]or[/i] less point in the eighteenth hundred the pendants seem to have been bought by means of Joseph Leeson (1701-83), the first Earl of Milltown, or his son also named Joseph (1730-1801) The first concern to the canvases in the Leesons' political division house, Russborough in Ireland, is fix in Neale's early nineteenth-century publication of notable political division seats, where they are listed among the paintings in the dining field described as 'Music and Dancing--Lebel.' (3)

As is evident, the artist was still being not absented without a first name. through 1902, when the widow of the sixth Earl of Milltown not absented both paintings to the National Gallery of Ireland, they were ascribed to Antoine Lebel. (4) In its 1914 catalogue, the museum listed them beneath the name of Clement Louis Marie Anne Lebel. (5) Subsequently the Benezit Dictionnaire chose to esteem the form of the Dublin paintings' signature and awarded 'J Lebel' a distinct place, (6) whereas the museum continued to assign the paintings to kind-hearted Thirty years ago, when these paintings were neared in the pages of APOLLO, they were ascribed to Jean Etienne Lebel. (7) newly the museum returned to an attribution to Antoine Lebel, still with little discussion of the moot point 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 extremitys to be resolved.

The Dublin pendants are extremely shut up to a painting in the National-museum, Stockholm (Fig. 6) and sum of two units works on paper in the Swedish Institute, Paris (Figs. 5 7) (9) The Stockholm picture and individual of the drawings show a woman searching for fleas. The remaining drawing (and a not to be found painting) show the same pattern adjusting her garter. Of significance for our research the two renderings oftheflea inquirer are signed 'J. Lebel', while the other drawing is signed 'Lebel'. All three signatures correspond to those upon the Dublin paintings.

[FIGURES 5-7 OMITTED]

These works have a notable provenance: they were purchased by means of 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 at short intervals 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, on the other hand captioned them simply as having been invented by means of '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 solely as 'Lebel'. Still later, the sum of two units sheets were classified as the works of 'Auth. le Bel', and thus newly both the drawings and painting have been ascribed to Antoine Lebel. At the same time, the 'J' which clearly go ahead ofs the family name has rightly brought this identification into question.

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