87 HENRI LEHMANN (Karl Ernest Rodolphe Heinrich Salem Lehmann) French, 1814­1882 Lamentation at the Foot of the Cross Gray wash, heightened with white chalk, over black chalk and graphite, on brown paper 42.8 x 29.2 cm (16 x 11½ in.) Cat. II, no. 63; 86.GB.474 This is a finished preparatory study for Lehmann's picture of the subject in the Chapelle de la Compassion, Church of Saint­Louis­en­l'Ile, Paris, painted in 1847. Lehmann was inspired by The Descent from the Cross, painted in 1789 by Jean­Baptiste Regnault for the chapel of the Chateau de Fontainebleau (Paris, Musee du Louvre). The drawing exemplifies the fashionable academic style that so dominated the art of the French Salons (see no. 72) from the middle of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twentieth. The long­standing twentieth­century vogue for Impressionism and Post­Impressionism has tended to hinder our appreciation of the many excellent qualities of this official style of painting, which favored history subjects above all other genres and admired a neo­Greek model that also allowed for multiple references to the great painting of the past. It is only recently that the work of these "official" painters, such as Lehmann, has come to be appreciated on its own terms for its gracefulness, remarkable proficiency of execution, and independent poetic power. Lehmann's speciality was history painting, often of scriptural subjects, such as the present example. He was employed in mural decorations, among them the galleries of the Hotel de Ville, Paris. In 1861 he was made head of the Academie des Beaux­Arts, and in 1875 professor at the Ecole des Beaux­Arts. FRENCH SCHOOL 105