Lot n° 8
Estimation :
40000 - 60000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 115 200EUR
Jean-Baptiste Marie PIERRE (Paris, 1714 -... - Lot 8 - Ader
Jean-Baptiste Marie PIERRE (Paris, 1714 - 1789)
The Apotheosis of Psyche
Canvas
57,6 x 65,2 cm
Provenance :
- Baron Joseph-Louis Léopold Double (1812-1881) collector, Paris (his bookplate pasted on the frame).
- His sale after death, Paris, in-situ (9, rue Louis-le-Grand), Me C. Pillet, May 30-June 4, 1881, part of n° 469 ("Joli boudoir [?] comes from the castle of Bellevue belonging to Mme de Pompadour", sold for 5400 francs to "Mis d'Estampes").
- Jacques-Louis-Léonce, marquis d'Estampes (1825-1902). By descent.
- Sale Niort, Deux-Sèvres Enchères, June 24, 2021.
Exhibitions :
- Retrospective Exhibition, Old Paintings Borrowed from Private Galleries, Paris, Palais des Champs-Elysées, May 1866, cat. no. 19 (as "Boucher").
- Paris, Exposition universelle de 1867, "Histoire du travail", cat. 4554 (as "attributed to François Boucher").
Bibliography:
- P. Lacroix, Un mobilier historique des XVII et XVIIIe siècles, by P.-L. Jacob, bibliophile, Paris, 1865, p. 22, reproduced.
- L. Lagrange, " Exposition rétrospective de tableaux de maîtres ", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. XX, May 1866, p. 576.
- P. Mantz, "Musée rétrospectif. La Renaissance et les temps modernes," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, vol. XX, January 1866, p. 19 (as attributed to Fragonard).
- L. Double, Promenade à travers deux siècles et quatorze salons, Paris, 1878, p. 19, reproduced.
- E. and J. de Goncourt, L'Art du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1881, p. 282.
- P. Eudel, L'Hôtel Drouot et la curiosité en 1881, Paris, 1882, p. 216.
- H. Havard, " L'Art dans la maison ", L'Illustration, vol. LXXX, n° 2073, Nov. 1882, p. 334, ill.
- J. Wilhelm, " l'Apothéose de Psyché. Une esquisse égarée de Jean-Baptiste Pierre pour le plafond du Salon de la duchesse d'Orléans au Palais-Royal ", Bulletin de la Société d'Histoire de l'Art Français, année 1991, Paris, 1992, pp. 165-172, reproduced p. 170, fig. 6.
- N. Lesur, O. Aaron, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre, Premier peintre du roi, Paris, 2009, pp. 102-103 and p. 276, cat. P. 174, reproduced p. 102 and p. 276.Following the death in June 1752 of Charles-Antoine Coypel, First Painter to the King, the new Director General of the King's Buildings, Abel-François Poisson, brother of Madame de Pompadour, gave up the idea of appointing someone to this post but offered Pierre the position of First Painter to the Duke of Orleans, which Coypel himself had inherited from his father. In 1754, Pierre decorated the private theater of the duke located in the Faubourg Saint-Martin and started at the same time the decoration of the new ceremonial apartments of the duchess in the Palais-Royal, his main project in the 1750s. The artist, in close collaboration with the architect Constant d'Ivry, provided numerous drawings for the decorations and executed several paintings including L'Apothéose de Psyché, a huge ceiling for the salon. One of the main testimonies of this important decoration, which was destroyed in 1787 when the palace was refurbished, is the description given by Antoine Nicolas Dezallier d'Argenville: "The new salon is nearly thirty-two feet long and twenty-eight feet wide. Its ceiling shows the Apotheosis of Psyche. Mercury leads the new divinity to Jupiter, followed by the Graces and a crowd of Lovers holding garlands of flowers. Love flies in front of her to receive her, and seems to ask the Master of the Gods for his consent. Minerva, Venus and Diana form the celestial court. Above the cornice, a pedestal has been pretended, on which several Children and Lovers appear to be busy with the preparations of the feast. This base is enriched with carpets, flowers, fruits and vases containing perfumes. On the corners, four groups of children hold bundles of lilies intertwined with roses, mirths and laurels. This great piece of painting does honor to Mr. Pierre" (Voyage pittoresque des environs de Paris ou des maisons royales, châteaux et autres lieux de plaisance, situés à quinze lieues environs de cette Ville, Paris, 1757, p.72-73).
Our sketch allows us to know this composition which has now disappeared. Pierre must have been particularly proud of his work and it is next to our sketch, slightly larger than life, that he chose to be represented by the painter Guillaume Voiriot (Versailles, Musée National du Château).
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