Inscribed on the reverse:

‘Bélisaire. Peint par Jean Ferstler; peintre de la manufacture J:R: á Vienne‘.

The J:R: in the ‘manufacture J:R: á Vienne‘ refers to the Imperial and Royal manufactory of Vienna. Johann Ferstler was born in St Pölten in 1776 and started work as a figure painter at the Imperial Vienna factory in 1797.

Jaques-Louis David’s ‘Bélisaire demandant l’aumône’ caused a sensation when it was exhibited at the Paris Salon in 1781. Belisarius was the great general who defeated the Vandals in North Africa in AD 533-534 but was later blinded on the order of the Emperor Justinian and reduced to begging on the street. The subject was politically contentious in suggesting the unjust actions of an absolute monarch which resonated in the tense atmosphere of pre-revolutionary France. This large painting is now in the Palais des Beaux Arts in Lille.

Jaques-Louis David, Bélisaire demandant l’aumône, the 1784 version in the Louvre

David returned to the subject in 1784, producing a smaller canvas with minor changes which is in the collection of the Louvre. The stance of the soldier recognising his old general and the figures in the background show that our tray derives from an engraving of this 1784 version.

David was a favourite artist of Napoleon, and the production of our tray perhaps coincides with his occupation of Vienna from May to October 1809 when he made his headquarters in Schönbrunn Palace. 

Condition:
Small area of gilding loss, no restoration

Price: £7,000