Circle of Fulchran Jean HARRIET
 (Paris, 1776 – Rome, 1805)

 Saul asking the pythoness of Andor to call the ghost of Samuel

 Oil on canvas
 31 x 42 cm
 Around 1800

 The episode is taken from the Bible (Books of Samuel). At the end of his reign, Saul, abandoned by Yahweh, trembles before the advance of the Philistines allied with his rival David. While he himself had banned sorcerers and other diviners, he secretly goes to a palmist in the village of Andor who has a talisman. Eager for advice, he asks her to make the prophet Samuel, who recently disappeared, appear. Samuel appears to the pythoness, but Saul, who prostrates himself, cannot see him. The ghost first refuses to answer Saul's questions, then predicts his fall and that of his dynasty. Saul will die the next day.

 Stylistically, our model is similar to the neoclassical works of Fulchran Jean Harriet, winner of the Grand Prix de Rome in 1793, and in particular to his painting Hero Discovering the Body of Leander, dated 1796. The physiognomy of the faces, the expressions and postures of the characters and the colours used by the artist, who remained anonymous, suggest that he was familiar with this work.

 Rarely treated, this dark biblical subject also inspired a British artist who was a contemporary of Harriet and who was also interested in fantasy: William Blake. Another lover of the subject, Gustave Doré also tackled it, but fifty years later...