Joseph VIVIEN (Lyon 1657 - Bonn 1734) - Lot 38

Joseph VIVIEN (Lyon 1657 - Bonn 1734) Posthumous portrait of Molière (?) Pastel, oval form. (The pastel has been enlarged around the edges to fit a frame). 73 x 58 cm Provenance : - Former collection of Prince Demidoff; fourth sale of the San Donato collections, Paris, Mes Pillet et Petit, March 8-9-10, 1870, no. 399, as "Robert Nanteuil, Molière. Beautiful bust portrait. Pastel, oval (62 x 51 cm)". - Former Silvius du Boys collection, 1874; by descent Paul du Boys; his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, Me Baudoin, March 28, 1941, no. 5, as attr.Nanteuil, Portrait de Molière. Oval pastel (61 x 50 cm); purchased by Eymonet. - Former Marcel Boussac collection, sale in Lille, 1980. - Private collection, Lille. Exhibition : Deuxième exposition d'ouvrages de peinture pour les Alsaciens et Lorrains demeurés Français, Paris, June-July 1874, no. 945, as Nanteuil. Bibliography: - Paul Lacroix, Iconographie molièresque, Paris, 1872, as Vivien and 1876, no. 18, "Un portrait de Molière au pastel, par Vivien ou Nanteuil". - Comte de Maleville, "Un portrait de Molière, pastel attributed to Robert Nanteuil",Le Molièriste, 1884, p. 27. - Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, 2006 online, under ref J,552.285. - Audrey Adamczak, Robert Nanteuil, Paris, 2007, Éditions Arthena, n°M112. Son of a Lyon merchant dyer, Joseph Vivien entered the Académie Royale in 1672. He won a Second Prix de Rome in 1678 and became a master painter in 1681. Charles Le Brun advised him to specialize in portraiture. It is likely that Vivien learned pastel from the Premier Peintre, and even drew inspiration from his self-portrait in his portrait of the lexicographer Richelet. Probably to distinguish himself from his famous colleagues Rigaud and Largillière, Vivien opted for the pastel technique and took up the torch from Nanteuil, who died in 1678. The King's ordinary painter at the Gobelins, he was admitted to the Académie Royale in 1698 as a "painter of pastel portraits", and was also appointed Painter to the Elector of Bavaria. At the 1704 Salon, he exhibited twenty-four pastel portraits, including effigies of the royal family. In the eyes of his contemporaries, he almost became "the inventor of painting with pastel pencils". Long after his death, Charles Coypel wrote of him in a poem read at the Académie Royale in 1748: "Vivien follows these marvelous masters quite closely. His little-known pastels became famous, And more than his brush, his pencils know how to please". Eighteenth-century critics saw him as the predecessor of La Tour, and compared him to Rosalba Carriera. With his cheerful, witty character, it's not impossible that he wanted to portray Molière in the garb of his time. If he is more of a contemporary, the custom of wearing a moustache seems to have been a thing of the past by 1700. In any case, the resemblance is uncanny enough to have convinced specialists in the great playwright. Presented in 1870 in the sale of Prince Demidoff's San Donato collections under this name, with an erroneous attribution to Robert Nanteuil, it is listed by Paul Lacroix in his Iconographie molièresque published in 1872 as Vivien. In 1884, Comte de Maleville again published the portrait in Le Moliériste, in an article entitled "Un portrait de Molière, pastel attributed to Robert Nanteuil". Maleville also discusses an effigy of La Fontaine (unknown to today's critics) as a counterpart in the San Donato sale, which could support the thesis that Vivien had been commissioned by an amateur to represent the great authors. Mr. Neil Jeffares supports the attribution to Vivien, but doubts the identification of the model with Molière. The work will be included in his online dictionary under n°J.77.2905.