Study for The Civil Marriage

Henri Gervex was one of the leading artists of France’s Third Republic. This sketch of a clerk at his desk, on inexpensive tan paper, appears to be the only surviving preparatory drawing for a The Civil Marriage, a large painting he made for the city hall of Paris's 19th arrondissement. Following the standard training of the École des Beaux-Arts (School of Fine Arts), he worked up preliminary sketches for the entire composition. In this sketch of the clerk at his desk, on inexpensive tan paper, Gervex took pains to get the angle and position of the figure’s left hand exactly right, as evidenced by the additional version in the upper right corner of the drawing. The finished painting shows the clerk as an older, balding figure whose interest in the ceremony appears less acute than the figure as originally drawn.