Concours pour le Prix de l’Etude des Têtes et de l’Expression

Edmond de Goncourt saw in the model a portrait of the famous actress Mlle Clairon (1723-1803), an assumption we find repeated in Portalis & Beraldi’s description of the print. This has been rejected since. However, the discovery of an early proof before letters from the Goncourt Collection (and from the same collection as the present impression), sold at Christie's, London (14 December 2017, lot 23; £11,875) makes it quite plausible that Edmond de Goncourt had privileged insight and may well have been correct in his identification of the sitter. While this remains subject of speculation, the three men seated on the right, overseeing the competition, have been firmly identified as the academy members Claude Vassé, Jean Restout and the Comte de Caylus, who had founded the competition.
The drawing of the subject by Cochin fils, in the same direction, is in the Louvre (inv. no. RF 2054).