Mlle du Val d’Ognes (da Jacques Louis David), 1969
GPO-0182
Mlle du Val d’Ognes (from Jacques Louis David)
Ink on paper affixed to primed canvas with white drawing pins
118 x 95 cm
Signed and dated on the verso, upper stretcher bar, left: “Giulio Paolini / 1969”
Fondazione Giulio e Anna Paolini, Turin
Gift of Anna Paolini Piva, 25 October 2012, archive no. GPO-0182
“Copy executed on the memory of the original”,1 Mlle du Val d’Ognes transcribes the title – written at the top of a sheet of drawing paper pinned to a primed canvas of the same size – and the approximate amount of space occupied by Mademoiselle Charlotte du Val d’Ognes (ca. 1801) by Constance Marie Charpentier, which the artist saw at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in the spring of 1969.2
Like other formally similar works made between 1967 and 1969, Mlle du Val d’Ognes relates the reading of the linguistic utterance – the assumed to be title or title-page – to the hypothetical subject or the possible vision associable with the canvas hidden by the sheet.
1 G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini: Vedo, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Galleria Notizie, 1970, n. pag.
2 At the time the work was made, Paolini was not aware of the fact that since 1951, the painting previously believed to be by Jacques-Louis David, was attributed to Constance Marie Charpentier, his pupil. Cf. to this regard the artist's note in G. Paolini, Idem (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 1975), p. 59, new edition (Milan: Electa, 2023), p. 85.
Title from Marie Denise Villers, Marie Joséphine Charlotte du Val d’Ognes, 1801, oil on canvas, 161 x 128 cm, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
| 1970 | Rome, QUI Arte Contemporanea, Giulio Paolini. Vedo, 20 January - 7 February, cited in the checklist of exhibited works, not repr. |
| 1970 | Turin, Galleria Notizie, Giulio Paolini. Vedo, 18 February - 20 March, cited in the checklist of exhibited works, not repr. |
| 2017-18 | Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, È solo un inizio, 2 October 2017 - 14 January 2018, repr. p. 19. |
| • | G. Paolini in Giulio Paolini. Vedo, exhibition catalogue, Turin, Galleria Notizie, 1970; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by G. Celant (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 288. |
| • | G. Celant, Giulio Paolini (New York: Sonnabend Press, 1972), pp. 80, 83, repr. no. 76 p. 80; republished in Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, edited by Id. (Milan: Fondazione Prada, 2003), p. 270; reprint (Cinisello Balsamo: Silvana Editoriale, 2019). |
| • | T. Trini, “Giulio Paolini, un decennio. Parte prima: Il vero e il visibile”, in Data 3, no. 7-8, (Milan), Summer, 1973, p. 61, not repr.; republished in Tommaso Trini. Mezzo secolo di arte intera. Scritti 1964-2014, edited by L. Cerizza (Milan: Johan & Levi Editore, 2016), p. 107, not repr.). |
| • | Giulio Paolini (Parma: Università di Parma, Centro Studi e Archivio della Comunicazione, 1976), repr. no. 116. |
| • | F. Poli, "Note di lettura", in Id., Giulio Paolini (Turin: Lindau, 1990), pp. 34, 40, not repr.; republished in Giulio Paolini. Von heute bis gestern / Da oggi a ieri, exhibition catalogue, Graz, Neue Galerie im Landesmuseum Joanneum (Ostfildern-Ruit: Cantz Verlag, 1998), pp. 55, 67, not repr. |
| • | Giulio Paolini 1960-1972, op. cit. (Milan: 2003), repr. p. 288. |
| • | A. Zevi, Peripezie del dopoguerra nell’arte italiana (Turin: Giulio Einaudi editore, 2005), p. 335, not repr. |
| • | M. Disch, Giulio Paolini. Catalogo ragionato 1960-1999, vol. 1 (Milan: Skira editore, 2008), cat. no. 182 p. 197, col. repr. |
