'The Fountain of Youth' a forgotten star of the 1845 salon: William Haussoullier's masterpiece, 'The Fountain of Youth', was eulogised by Baudelaire in his review of the 1845 Salon but then disappeared into obscurity in England, Graham Reynolds��who bought it for four guineas in 1937��traces the history of its subject and decribes the impact the painting made in the 1840s

To start on an autobiographical note: in 1937 I was a newly appointed assistant keeper in the Department of Prints, Drawings and Paintings in the Victoria and Albert Museum. One of my duties was to see if anything being offered in the salerooms might be of interest to that wide-ranging department. When looking at the sale of modern pictures at Christie's on 17 December 1937 my attention was engrossed by a large painting hung high up on the main gallery walls. The catalogue gave the title and artist: lot 107, The Fountain of Youth by William Haussoullier (1818-91) and the information that it had been exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1844. I was so taken with the painting (Figs. 1 and 2) that I decided to bid up to ten guineas for it (in those days large paintings, particularly by obscure artists, were difficult to sell). It was knocked down to me for four guineas and was hung in my office at the V&A and then at my various homes. I was pleased with my purchase, which I took to be a work by an artist of whom no one had heard.

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Two or three years later I was leafing through a selection of Baudelaire's art criticism and was astonished to find that my painting was the subject of a four-page eulogy in Baudelaire's review of the 1845 Paris Salon. He says that after Delacroix's wonderful pictures this is truly the capital work of the exhibition. In fact he regarded it as the unique picture of the Salon, because Delacroix had long been famous, whereas Haussoullier was unknown before. Baudelaire's evaluation is given more energy by his indignation at the hostile reception that the painting had attracted. At the same time, it was the subject of a poem by Theodore de Banville. When my friend and colleague Jonathan Mayne translated a selection of Baudelaire's criticism in The Mirror of Art, published by Phaidon in 1955, he reproduced the painting for the first time.

Attempts to establish its history have been frustrated in one important respect: the name of the collector in England to whom it belonged. It had been completed in 1843. When he sent it to the Academy in 1844 the artist consigned it 'c/o Mr Cheveley, Ravenscourt Park'. (1) Neither this fact nor the name of Arthur Spencer, the dealer who sent the painting for sale at Christie's in 1937, have yet led to the real owner or owners. (2)

Born in 1818, Haussoullier was baptised Guillaume, but was known as William, a fact that suggests a British element in his ancestry. (3) This could account for the disappearance of The Fountain of Youth into an English collection. He was a pupil of Delaroche and an admirer of Ingres, but seems to have found that amongst his contemporaries Chasseriau was most sympathetic to his ideas. Their close association is confirmed by a sensitive three-quarter-length pencil portrait of Haussoullier drawn by Chasseriau in 1850 that reached a record price of 850,000 francs when sold at auction in Paris in 1988. (4)

From 1838 he exhibited a range of works at the Salon. Some are classical in subject: Bacchus in 1841; Naides in 1851; Bacchantes sacrificant in 1855. Others are of religious subjects: for instance, The Virgin and St John at the Foot of the Cross, shown in 1840. His Death of St Catherine of Alexandria, which was commissioned in 1858 and became the property of the state, went to the church of St Ursmer de Eppe Sauvage in 1881. Two stained-glass windows after his designs, representing St John the Baptist (1859) and St Augustine (1861) were made for St-Leu in Paris.

By the mid-1860s his exhibits were limited to reproductive engravings after, inter alia, Luini, Ingres and Chasseriau. For these he was awarded a medal in 1866. Amongst his minor works were copies of Donatello and Giotto drawn in Florence and given to Gustave Moreau. The impression left by this later history is of an artist who had expended most of his creative energy on his masterpiece, The Fountain of Youth. He died in 1891.

The legend of the Fountain of Youth gained currency in the twelfth century. (5) Commentators warn us not to confuse it with the Fountain of Restored Virginity, or that of the Fountain of Life. The former was of practical help to the immortal and ever-young goddess Hera. The latter has evident links with the Christian practice of baptism. There is no such implication here. Haussoullier, followed by his interpreters Baudelaire and Banville, makes the process of rejuvenation a purely pagan event. As such, the legend occurs frequently in medieval texts and in images in many forms: ivory carvings, illuminations, engravings, paintings. The ivories on which it appears are objects of luxury; caskets, mirror backs (Fig. 5). These ivories are fairly constricted in the number of figures they can show on their way to and from the fountain. The pictorial images have many more figures. The fountains may be elaborate structures with two of three basins as in the engraving by H.S. Beham (Fig. 6) and a fresco in the Castello della Mantua, Piedmont; in each of these the fountain is capped by a statue of Cupid, and the newly young begin to embrace whilst in the basins. An interestingly deviant example amongst the manuscripts is that of the Roman de Fauvel, in which the rejuvenated figures inherit the evil tendencies of Fauvel and set out to pollute the Garden of France.

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The medieval tradition reached its climax in the painting of 1546 by Lucas Cranach the elder in the Gemaldegalerie, Berlin (Fig. 4). This is described in Master Works from the Gemaldegalerie Berlin as the only known large easel-painting of the subject. (6) It depicts a version of the legend in which it is solely women who are transformed. On emerging they are escorted to a tent where they may dress and then dance, feast and flirt.

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The files of the Warburg Institute have little to offer about the treatment of the subject after Cranach. But Jane Munro has discovered that Clement Boulanger (1805-42) exhibited a painting La Fontaine de Jouvence at the Paris Salon of 1839. It was reproduced as a lithograph in Le Charivari of 10 April 1839. Since Boulanger had first exhibited at the Salon of 1838, and again in 1840, Haussoullier no doubt saw this picture, but his treatment of the subject owes nothing to the earlier work. Boulanger's fountain is an elaborate structure overshadowed by pine trees in the background. Those who have been rejuvenated are mostly bathing in a pool which occupies the foreground of the picture, but incongruously one or two greybeards, not yet transformed, are mingling with them. More arrivals are coming by boat in the left background.

A distinctive feature of Haussoullier's interpretation of the subject lies in the way in which he has created real personalities for the major figures in his work. Baudelaire's enthusiastic description of the painting begins with the three groups which are prominent in the foreground. On the left two lovers, 'gazing into one another's eyes and talking close together--they appear to be practising Platonic love'. (7) In the middle a half-naked woman seen from the back, 'smiling and chatting with her partner; there is a greater air of sensuality about her, and she still holds a mirror in which she has been looking at herself'. (8) On the right a robust and elegant man smilingly puts his glass on the turf while his companion pours some wonderful elixir into the glass of a slim man standing in front of her. Baudelaire gives particular praise to the head of this seated man (Fig. 3). (9) Apart from his swarthy complexion his features bear a marked resemblance to the portrait of F.G. Stephens as Ferdinand in Millais' Ferdinand lured by Ariel, exhibited in 1849 (Tate). Some students have suggested that the Pre-Raphaelites might have been influenced by this picture. The idea cannot be dismissed out of hand, but the similarity of technique in painting in bold colours on a light ground might be due to a common ancestry: the Nazarenes or the school of Lyons.

Baudelaire goes on to describe the groups embracing on the second plane. He singles out two figures which are in the chrysalis stage of rejuvenation: 'vapourously, outrageously white'. (10) He completes his description with the happy arrival of the old along the tortuous path on the left, whilst in the background on the right a kind of joyful ballet is taking place. He sums up: 'The sentiment of this picture is exquisite; it shows us people making love and drinking--a sight that thrills the senses--but they are drinking and making love in a deeply serious, almost a melancholy manner'. (11) Above it has the important quality of visibility: 'elle est tres voyante'. (12)

Theodore de Banville's poem 'La Fontaine de Jouvence' was published in the collection Les Stalactites, 1846. (13) When he wrote his poem on the picture Banville made use of Baudelaire's text and added to it from his own observation of the painting. (14) In fifteen mellifluous stanzas of four lines he describes the content of the painting and interprets its message. He details the white marble of the fountain and its dolphins, and the pearly whiteness of the rejuvenated. Whilst Baudelaire had only hinted at a reminiscence of Bellini in the composition, Banville makes a clear connection with the Venetians:

   There they are smiling, proud of
   their appearance
   Clothed richly for feast and battle
   As the great Venetians once
   lovingly painted them. (15)

He notes the central nude in the foreground:

   Proud to be living and to admire
   herself
   In the dimmed steel of her mirror. (16)

He follows Baudelaire in his description of the nude girl wringing the water from her hair, and the humid vapour of the girl emerging as a chrysalis. His lines on the dancers in the background:

   Shaking their tambourines whose
   cymbals sing. (17)

are more precise than Baudelaire and confirm that he made his own study of the picture.

His poem combines the narrative of the painting with glosses on its interpretation. The rejuvenated have profited from their previous experience of life; they know

   the price of the goods which make
   us love life
   Yeild to their desires without
   trouble and coldness,
   And slowly empty the cup of
   pleasure. (18)

He links the wine which they are drinking with the fire stolen by Prometheus, and regards it as the source of poetic inspiration:

   Let us seek in wine the forbidden
   knowledge
   And ideal love upon the lips of
   beauties. (19)

Throughout he emphasises the sensuality of Haussoullier's message, which he sums up as:

   Turning their spirits toward eternal
   goods
   Shows them the Ideal in sensual
   pleasure. (20)

This sentiment greatly shocked Ernest Prarond in 1852 for extolling 'the supremacy of the lowest tendencies of our natures'. (21)

Neither Baudelaire nor Banville mention the statue on top of the fountain, which appears to represent a rather androgynous Cupid. Nor do they describe a marked idiosyncrasy of the artist's: his impulse to miniaturise the objects in the foreground. The cup from which the standing dandy is drinking a marvellous elixir would hardly hold the most meanly measured liqueur and the jewels spilling out of the box in the foreground are also smaller than they would be on a normal scale.

For many years those who were curious about the appearance of Haussoullier's painting had to rely on Baudelaire's extensive description. Then in 1924 Jacques Crepet published a drawing in pen and watercolour by the artist which embodies many of the features of the painting. (22) It is however a design for a fan, and the composition has been modified for this purpose. A semi-circular segment has been cut from it to provide room for the fan-sticks, and this has meant eliminating the three main groups of lovers in the foreground. The figures on the right in the second plane are mostly included, but those who await the metamorphosis are on flights of steps. Steps also lead the way to the fountain.

When the painting itself emerged from oblivion in 1955 it became possible to assess the validity of Baudelaire's judgement. Most students of the writer have been able to accept the relevance of his criticism. In his searching account of Baudelaire's views on art in the introduction to his edition of Curiosites Esthetiques; L'Art Romantique (1962), Henri Lemaitre finds that the painting gave rise to the first enunciation of Baudelaire's essential requirement of art: 'l'art pur'; 'la peinture absolue'. (23)

Baudelaire had already become convinced of the necessity of this concept. He went on to refine it further as a result of his enthusiasm for Edgar Allen Poe, and with derivations from Coleridge's concept of the creative imagination. It involved the artist recovering the innocence of a child's vision, his creating in a state akin to drunkenness, a naivete which is founded on thorough competence, and above all individuality. He found these qualities embodied in Haussoullier's painting The Fountain of Youth and repeated his view about its individuality in the introduction to his Salon of 1846.

In his preface to the first volume of his edition of Baudelaire's writings (1971), Yves Florenne wrote 'one is not far from sharing Baudelaire's feelings'. (24) A. Calvet has written 'Baudelaire was apparently the first to perceive all the slightly naive poetry of this composition, treated in a style purely "Troubadour". (25)

P. Daix mentions the painting in his structuralist interpretation of Manet. (26) It is also discussed and reproduced in the catalogue by Mary Louise Krumrine of the exhibition 'Paul Cezanne: Die Badenden' at the Kunstmuseum, Basel in 1989. (27) She compares figures in Cezanne's compositions with one in Haussoullier: 'in the middle stands a nude woman; she is wringing from her hair the last drops of the healthgiving and fertilising stream'. (28)

Professor Fried, in his study of Manet's modernism, remarks 'It has not perhaps escaped notice that in certain obvious respects the Fountain of Youth has marked affinities with the Dejeuner sur l'herbe [Fig. 7].' (29) But it has not been found that Manet knew the picture.

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M. Lemaitre suggests that the subject anticipates Puvis de Chavannes and Gauguin. Puvis did in fact tackle it; his painting of around 1863 was sold at Sotheby's on 31 March 1965 (lot 116, reproduced in the catalogue). But his is asparse and dispersed composition and has less solidity and conviction than Haussoullier's. Despite the total difference in style, Gauguin's Tahitian studies do come closer to his approach in their uncompromising solidity and the combination of assurance and mystic significance with which his figures occupy the ground on which they are sitting.

In view of his enthusiasm for medieval legends it comes as no surprise that Burne-Jones should have been attracted to the theme. (30) He made a number of studies for a large work, but did not complete the painting he had planned (Fig. 8). Walter Crane also chose the subject for exhibition at the New Gallery in 1901. (31)

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The only opportunity since 1845 in which it has been possible for a wider audience to see the picture itself came when it was included in the Baudelaire exhibition at the Petit Palais in 1968-1969. The response was mixed. To the critic of The Times it suggested 'an English leg-pull'. (32) The most enthusiastic appraisal was that of Maurice Serullaz, in his review of the exhibition. His profound study of Delacroix makes it of special interest to read his opinion of this painting. In terms which almost echo those of the poet he wrote 'without doubt, one of the great revelations of the exhibition. This is, in our opinion, the most extraordinary painting of the "Style Troubadour"; it exceeds in this field the works of Ingres and Delacroix'. (33)

As the climax of his judgement of the painting Baudelaire praises the conviction which it imparts: 'this is absolute, self-convinced painting, which cries aloud "I will, I will be beautiful, and beautiful according to my own lights; and I know that I shall not lack an audience to please!'". (34) This prophecy has been fulfilled.

In addition to the specific obligations mentioned in the text I would like to record thanks to all those who have made valuable suggestions and encouraged me by their support, including Judy Egerton. Michael Kauffmann, Jane Munro, David Scrase and Colin Shields The translations of the French text are taken from Charles Baudelaire. The Mirror of Art, edited and translated by Jonathan Mayne, London, 1955. Those of Theodore de Banville's La Fontaine de Jouvence are by the author.

(1) Mrs Anne Wheeldon, archivist, London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham, has kindly confirmed that a family named Cheveley, under various spellings, is recorded at addresses in Ravenscourt Park from 1841 till 1851. At the census of that year the head Caroline Cheveley and her brother Peter are listed as a 'Fundholders'.

(2) In spite of the report that all of Christie's records were destroyed during World War II, Linda McLeod, librarian of Christie's Archives, has been able to supply the information that the painting was submitted by A. Spencer, 41 Harrow Road. Ms Hilary Davies of the City of Westminster Archives has confirmed that this refers to Arthur Spencer, a fine art dealer.

(3) I am most grateful to Jane Munro, who has supplied me with much valuable information about the artist from French sources.

(4) L'Hotel Druout, Paris, 22 March 1988.

(5) I am deeply indebted to Professor Michael Kauffman for all the help he has given me on this subject. He introduced me to the articles, by David J.A. Ross, 'Allegory and Romance on a Medieval French Marriage Casket', in Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, vol. xi, 1948, pp. 112-42, and Martin Kauffman, 'Satire, Pictorial Genre and the illustrations in BN fr, 146', in Margaret Bent and A. Wathey (eds.), Fauvel Studies, no. 5, Oxford, 1998, He also searched the records of the Warburg Institute for representations of the theme, both medieval and more recent.

(6) Judy Egerton was kind enough to provide me with this reference. The volume was compiled by Henning Bock et al.; English translation 1986.

(7) 'les yeux dans les yeux, causent de fort pres, et ont l'aire de faire l'amour allemand'. Baudelaire, op. cit., p. 10.

(8) 'jase aussi en sounant avec son partenaire; elle a l'air plus sensuel, et tient encore un mirroir ou elle vient de se regarder'. Ibid., p. 11.

(9) 'a ravishing head, this, with forehead a trifle low and lips a shade forceful' ('une tete ravissante, le front un peu bas, les levres un peu fortes'). Ibid., p. 11.

(10) 'vaporeusement, outrageusement blanches'. Ibid., p. 11.

(11) 'Le sentiment de ce tableau est exquis; dans cette composition l'on aime et l'on boit,--aspect voluptueux--mais I'on boit et I'on aime d'une maniere tres serieuse, presque melancolique'. Ibid.

(12) Mayne translates 'voyante' as 'showy': ibid., p. 12.

(13) The definitive text of Les Stalactites is Theodore de Banville, Oeuvres Poetiques Completes, edited and fully annotated by Eileen Souffrin-le-Breton, vol. II, Pans, 1996, pp. 43-45, 498-502. I must here express my deep gratitude to her for the generosity with which she has discussed the subject with me, even proposing revisions in my attempt at an English translation of the poem.

(14) Although dated 1844 when published in Les Stalactitas, Eileen de Breton has established that this is wrong, and that Banville was writing after the appearance of Baudelaire's review in May 1845.

(15) 'Voyons-les, souriants, fiers de leur belle taille/Dans ces riches habits de fete et de bataille/qu'aux siecles anciens Peignaient avec amour les grands Venetiens'.

(16) 'Fiere enfin de vivre et de se voir/ Tantot joue, et ternit l'acier de son miroir'

(17) 'Agitant leurs tambours dont les clochettes chantent'.

(18) 'Le prix des biens qui font aimer la vie/Sans trouble et sans froideur cedent a leurs desires,/ Et vide lentement la coupe des plaisirs'.

(19) 'Cherchons au fond du vin les sciences rebelles/Et l'amour ideal sur les levres des belles'.

(20) 'Tournant leur esprit vers les biens eternels/Leur montre L'ldeal dans les plaisirs charnels'.

(21) 'la suprematie des plus basses tendances de notre nature'. Ernest Prarond, De Quelques Ecrivalos Nouveaux, Paris, 1852, p. 95.

(22) Jaques Crepet, 'A propos d'une toile celebree par Baudelaire', in Le Figaro (literary supplement), 15 November 1924. It was included in the exhibition 'Le Style Troubadour', Musee de l'Ain, Bourg en Bresse, 1971.

(23) Hend Lemaitre (ed.), Curiositea Esthetiques: L'Art Romantique, Paris, 1962. His discussion of Hassoullier is on pp. xxxii-xxxv.

(24) 'on n'est pas loin de partager le sentiment de Baudelaire'. Charles Baudelaire, Eerits sur L'Art, vol. I, Paris, 1971, p. 18.

(25) 'Baudelaire fut apparemment le seul a percevoir toute la poesie un peu naive de cette composition, traitee dans un style purement "Troubadour"'. 'Baudelaire', exh. cat., Petit Palais, Paris, 1968, pp. 68-69, no. 146.

(26) P. Dak, L'Aveuglement devant la peinture, Paris, 1971, pp. 35-36, 94. The painting is reproduced facing p. 254.

(27) Mary Louise Krumrine, Paul Cezanne: Die Badenden, exh. cat., Kunstmuseum, Baael, 1989, Abb. 107, pp. 137,144, 264 and notes 7, 15.

(28) 'une femme nue et debout, tord ses cheveux d'ou degoutent les derniers pleurs de l'eau salutaire et fecondante'. Baudelaire (Mayne), op. cit., p. 11.

(29) Michael Fried, Manet's Modernism, Chicago, 1996, pp. 165-67, 521 and fig. 82.

(30) John Christian has kindly given me full details of Burne-Jones's various versions of the subject from 1873, notably the Tate's monochrome (no. 3429) and the very large drawing in coloured chalks in the Sarjeant Gallery at Wanganui, New Zealand, which he dates c. 1881, fig. 8. The latter, which shows only the right-hand side of the composition, proves that it was planned on a monumental scale, but the final canvas was not started.

(31) Walter Crane's version is reproduced in his An Artist's Reminiscences, London, 1907, p. 494.

(32) Audrey Davis, The Times, 12 February 1969.

(33) 'sans doute, I'une des grandes revelations de l'exposition. C'est, a notre avis, la plus extraordinaire peinture de "Style Troubadour"; il depasse meme dans ce domaine les oeuvres d'lngres et de Delacroix'. Les Nouvelles litteraires artistiqaea et scientlfiques, Special Baudelaire; 21 November 1968, p. A.

(34) 'c'est de la peinture absolue, convaincue, qui crie: "je veux, je veux etre belle, et belle comme je l'entends' et je sais que je ne manquerai pas de gens & qui plaire.'" Baudelaire (Mayne), op. cit., p. 12.

Graham Reynolds, a specialist in Constable and portrait miniatures, was keeper of the department of prints, drawings and paintings at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where he worked from 1937 to 1974.

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