Le Faune et sa Femelle (The Faun and his Female) by Nicolas Chaperon (Chateaudun 1612-1655 Lyon), oil on canvas, size 59 x 44.5 cm. As one of the pupils of Simon Vouet, Chaperon was not only a painter but was also an engraver who made prints from works by Vouet, Poussin and Dorigny, all with themes from Greek and Roman mythology. The subject matter was mainly taken from Roman writers such as Ovid and Catullus, who wrote about the childhood and life of the wine god Bacchus, called Dionysus by the Greeks. Bacchus was the son of Zeus by the priestess Semele and he was celebrated in ancient mythology for his orgies surrounded by satyrs, female revelers and fauns (a famous depiction of Bacchus and Ariadne by Titian hangs in the National Gallery in London). The secular taste for such light hearted scenes, allowing the artist to freely use his imagination became early on fashionable in Italy and France. Chaperon produced paintings of Bacchanalia and a series of engravings from his own works in Paris before leaving for Rome in 1636. In this work the influence of Poussin is clearly visible in the cherub to the left and the influence of Vouet in the female figure, but both the seated faun with his huge shoulders and the satyr looking down from the tree are typical of Chaperon as is the small cherub leaning against the Faun and looking up at him. There is an engraving (in the same direction) after this painting by Chaperon in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris, size 227 x 163 mm, signed in the plate Chaperon f., Mariette excudit, engraved by Chaperon and published by Pierre-Jean Mariette, a Parisian dealer in prints and illustrated in the exhibition catalogue Nicolas Chaperon, 1612-1654/55, Du graveur au peintre retrouvé, Nîmes musées des Beaux-Arts, 1999, authors: Sylvain Laveissière, Dominique Jacquot and Guillaume Kazerouni, pages 102-104, illus page 102, Catalogue number 21. This painting has great charm, and relates to the similarly appealing Drunken Silenus by Chaperon in the Uffizi Gallery in Florence. The juxtaposition of the Faun and his Female in the foreground, reclining in opposite positions is an image going back to antiquity. Dr. Dominique Jacquot one of the editors of the Nimes exhibition catalogue and author of the chapter on Chaperon's early years in Paris and his Bacchanalia has approved of the attribution.

Le Faune et sa Femelle (The Faun and his Female), a preparatory drawing for the above painting by Nicolas Chaperon (Chateaudun 1612-1655 Lyon), pen and brown ink with brown wash, size 28.5 x 21.5 cm. Provenance Jules-Alexandre Duval Le Camus (1814-1878), Paris, whose collection stamp it bears lower left (Lugt, Marques de Collections de Dessins et d'Estampes,, no. 1441). This high quality drawing follows Chaperon's superb graphic style as well as his preferred medium of pen and brown ink and brown wash (cf. Sylvain Laveissière, Dominique Jacquot and Guillaume Kazerouni, Nicolas Chaperon 1612-1654/55 , catalogue for the exhibition at the musées de Nîmes, 1999, Cat. 35, p. 140 illus. passim). Dr. Jacquot mentions in his description of the engraving in the same direction made by Chaperon himself (cf. idem, Cat. 21, pp. 102/4, illus. collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris), that despite the heavy influence of Poussin and Vouet, one finds here the typical features of Chaperon's modeling of figures. The faun seen from the rear with large shoulders, the child with his round face who looks up at him and in particular the satyr with horns on a bald and knobby head seen from above, which he describes as a sort of signature of the artist. As comparison Jacquot mentions paintings sold at Christie's London in 1997 and a design correctly attributed to Chaperon by Kazerouni, illustrated in the drawing catalogue by Richard Harprath, Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée et alia, Simon Vouet: 100 neuentdeckte Zeichnungen for an exhibition at the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munchen, 1991. The fact that the composition has been copied many times and that the engraving exists in many impressions shows that it was a much admired image during Chaperon's life time.There are copies after our drawing in the Louvre (copie après Chaperon 41 x 30.6 cm., inv. 25205, Fonds des dessins, Grand format) and one in the Albertina in Vienna (Satyrfamilie 24.8 x 19.5 cm. inv. no.11591).

Neptune calmant la tempête (Neptune calming the storm), an exceptional and large work by Pierre Brebiette (Mantes 1598?-1642 Paris), oil on canvas, size 111.7 x 148.6 cm., attributed with the full support from Dr. Paola Bassani Pacht author and Dr. Sylvain Kerspern, co-author of the exhibition catalogue Pierre Brebiette, Musée des Beaux-Arts d'Orleans, 2002. As Jacques Thuillier wrote in his preface to the catalogue " On peut voir en Brebiette un petit maître charmant qui poursuit en plein XVIIe siècle le vieux rêve païen de Fontainebleau et retrouve pour chanter Bacchus, les dryades et les satyres, les accents point si lointains ni oubliés de la Pléïade. Mais un autre image s'impose : celle d'un artiste indépendant, dont les expériences romaines eurent un role déterminant pour le développement du courant néo-venétien des années vingt " (One could see in Brebiette a charming small master who pursues in the full seventeenth century the old pagan dream of Fontainebleau and recovers for our enchantment Bacchus, the dryads and satyrs, returning to the quite far removed but not forgotten sounds of the 'Pléïade'- i.e. the Pléïade is the name given to a group of 16th-century French Renaissance poets, inspired by Alexandrian poets and tragedians of the 3rd century B.C. -. But another image imposes itself: that of an independent artist, to whom the Roman experiences were a determining role for the development of the neo-Venetian trend in the years twenty - i.e. 1620's -). Brebiette's works have great charm, but there are traces of melancholy like in our painting as if celebrating a vanishing mythological world. His depictions of Proserpina abducted to the Underworld (there is an example in the Louvre and a small variation on copper in private hands) denote a regret as if with her all of antiquity disappears into the dark. This large Neptune calmant la tempête with the prominent figure of Neptune en colère (wrathful), seems almost a warning not to forget or neglect the ancient gods while we navigate our uncertain fate. The ship with its torn sails struggles to reach safe haven, while a Triton heralds Neptune's triumph. It is in fact a depiction inspired by the Aeneid of Virgil where Aeneas' ship threatened by a storm invoked by Aeolus the god of the wind to exert a revenge by the goddess Juno on Aeneas is calmed by Neptune himself so that Aeneas will safely reach the coast of Africa, here seen in the distance. Brebiette is an idiosyncratic painter as can be seen in his self portrait engraved after the death of his wife Loyse de Neufgermain in 1637, which bears the inscription animum pictura pascit inani (Painting nourishes the heart of him who is overwhelmed), but also with a poetic and romantic nature almost modern in sensibility. His love for a vanishing ancient world was encouraged in Rome by the Cavaliere Dal Pozzo, the sophisticated patron of Poussin whose deep interests in Roman archeology were well known. Having become peintre du roi (court painter to Louis XIII) Brebiette enjoyed success in Paris with his tales from ancient mythology. Both Dr. Bassani Pacht and Dr. Kerspern place our Neptune calmant la tempête to about 1640 towards the end of Brebiette's working life, a date supported by the structure of the struggling ship and by an engraving by Brebiette dated 1640 of Le Temps sur son Char...etc. (in the Orleans catalogue number 103, page 102, illustrated) which shows the figure of Time (see detail below) whose physiognomy resembles that of Neptune in our painting seated on a chariot and with fluttering robes comparable to the torn sails on Aeneas' ship. Dr. Bassani Pacht states that she plans to publish our painting in an article on Brebiette's landscapes in a forthcoming collection of essays in honor of the eminent art historian Jacques Thuillier, edited by Alain Merot, Philippe Sénéchal et Denis Lavalle. The painting is at present exhibited at Galerie Alexis Bordes, 4 rue de la Paix, 75002 Paris with a special illustrated catalogue written by Dr. Paola Bassani Pacht (http://www.alexis-bordes.com/images/news/BREBIETTE2014/ABordesCatalogue_Brebiette2014.pdf).

A glowing Allegory of Love and Abundance, by Charles Poerson (Vic-sur-Seille 1609 - 1667 Paris), circa the mid-1630's (?), oil on canvas, size 93 x 75 cm. Venus, whose lower torso is loosely wrapped in a mantle, sits in an informal pose between two putti representing Anteros as Requited Love and Eros as Abundant Love or in another sense, spiritual and sublime emotion against base and material wants. Cupid as Anteros stands confidently to one side, leaning on his bow and against the goddess' knee, a stalwart defender of love's sanctity and spiritual power. The other cupid jumping animatedly in front of a broken column is Eros, by contrast, an emblem of unchecked appetites as he attempts to seize the bunch of grapes that Venus prudently withholds. One can infer from this tantalizing juxtaposition -- along with the gathering storm clouds in the background -- that a momentous decision has been made. The goddess, whose arm rests on Anteros's shoulder, has chosen love that is high-minded and everlasting over the quest for more fleeting, sensual pleasures. It was not uncommon for artists of seventeenth century France to flatter their aristocratic female patrons by portraying them as classical goddesses like Venus or Diana and in poses reminiscent of Greek and Roman sculpture. This may be the case here, although the sitter is unknown. Nudity was no impediment to such portrayals provided that the goddess was clearly shown as the embodiment of beauty, chastity, wisdom, good breeding, and/or as a devout patron of the fine arts. (It was only from the mid-eighteenth century on that the middle class virtues of literacy, religious devotion, or motherhood became popular modes of representation). The composition takes its inspiration clearly from the 16th century engraving by Giovan Battista de' Cavalieri (1525-1601) after a seated antique marble Venus flanked by Anteros and Eros, kept in the Chiaramonti collection in the Vatican museums. The figure of Cupid as Anteros is directly taken from a fresco by Raphael circa 1516 in the Vatican (Stufetta del Cardinale Bibbiena) which was engraved by Agostino Veneziano (ca. 1490-ca. 1540) now kept in the Metropolitan Museum, New York (Inv. 59.570.230 and Bartsch XIV 218.286) (see below). Charles Poerson bathes the figure of Venus in strong white light emanating somewhat from the left, and frames her face and flowing locks with the contrasting tones of black and royal blue in the sky. The flesh tones are sumptuously rendered in fine gradations of color. A pink ribbon in Cupid's hair marks him as the favorite of the goddess. The landscape background efficiently conveys a poetic atmosphere, and the broken column alludes to the vanity of once mighty civilizations now lost. This Allegory of Love and Abundance would appear to be an appropriate summation of Poerson’s Atticiste style inspired by the Bolognese school of painters, incorporating an inventive disegno and subtle coloration with an admirable gift for conveying refined sentiment. The face of Venus is directly reflected in the face of Helena in Poerson's small tondo of L'Enlèvement d'Hélène in the Louvre (Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, Nicole de Reyniès and Nicolas Sainte Fare Garnot, Charles Poerson (1609-1667), Arthena 1997, color plate 2, cat. no. 3, page 78). It is only in the last thirty years that historians have come to recognize Charles Poerson as a major exponent of the new classical style in France during the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XIV. Art historians like Clementine Gustin-Gomez have attempted to restore him to prominence by distinguishing his work from that of his contemporaries. Dr. Gustin-Gomez wrote about the Allegory of Love and Abundance that the attribution is a very good idea without having seen the painting in person. The attribution is fully accepted by Patrice Marandel, European painting curator at the Los Angeles County Museum. This painting was suggested already as a work from Charles Poerson's hand by Jean-Claude Boyer, formerly from the Académie de France in Rome and by Sylvain Laveissière, the Louvre's emeritus chief curator of paintings, based on the resemblance of the figures in this work to paintings and drawings known to be by the artist. The French collector Paul Micio who owns a major Poerson also recognized this work as autograph. Charles Poerson appears to have entered in 1634 the studio of Simon Vouet (1590-1649). It is reported that he worked with Philippe de Champaigne and Simon Vouet on Cardinal de Richelieu’s palace circa 1632. It is possible that he went to Italy sometime during 1630s, which would support the connection of this composition with the antique marble sculpture and Raphael’s fresco in the Vatican (see above) although there is no direct evidence that documents this. In any event, he developed an Italianate style under Vouet's tutelage, characterized by a restrained palette, strong lighting effects, the use of monumental figures modeled after antique prototypes, and a tendency to set the action against rather static but evocative architectural settings. His pictorial language became also closely aligned with Vouet's. After the death of Vouet in 1649, Poerson’s style became more classical, that is, less theatrical and more intellectually complex both in composition and in his deployment of color. He settled as a painter in Paris from 1638 onwards and in 1651 he was elected member of the Académie royale. Charles Poerson designed a large number of cartoons for the royal tapestry works, les Gobelins. Among his more famous works are the large and fine allegorical portrait of the young Louis XIV as Jupiter and victor over the Fronde rebellion hanging in Versailles and his beautiful and classical Camma et Synorix in the musée des Beaux-Arts in Metz, both of which relate directly to this superb Allegory, in particular in the faces and bodies of the grand figure of Louis XIV and the suffering Camma. The painting comes from a notable private collection in Rome and was exhibited at the New Orleans Museum of Art as by a close pupil of Vouet in 2008-2010. The painting was also on loan to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art as attributed to Poerson in 2012/2013 (http://www.lacma.org ).

A large and impressive Bacchanal by Nicolas Chaperon (Chateaudun 1612-1655 Lyon), oil on canvas, size 133.5 by 144.5 cm. This splendid image though maybe less reddish and lighter in tone than some of Chaperon's other paintings (cf. 'The Drunken Silenus' in the Uffizi gallery in Florence) nevertheless displays many characteristics of Chaperon's hand. For example one notices here the splatches of red color in the tree trunks like in an earlier 'Faun and his Female' by Chaperon (see above). And the prone figure of the inebriated Silenus is found in many of Chaperon's drawings, etchings and paintings. A close comparison can be made between the typical physiognomy of the figures within a triangular composition and the five engravings after Chaperon by Michel Dorigny as confirmed by the art-historian and collector Jean-Pierre Mariette (1694–1774). The attribution is fully supported by Dr. Patrice Marandel of the Los Angeles County Museum. All the bacchanalia are described by Dr. Dominique Jacquot and illustrated in the small exhibition catalogue edited by Dr. Sylvain Laveissière of Chaperon's works at the Nîmes musée des Beaux-Arts in 1999, pages 79-135. The closest of these engravings is Laveissière's catalogue number 22 (in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris), pages 104-106 where one can see the bacchante on the left in our painting who embraces the other bacchante half turned away from the viewer directly reflected in the bacchante who pours wine into the lifted cup of a kneeling bacchante (see detail below). This typical embracing gesture is present in many of the etchings and drawings after and by Chaperon (cf. the satyr embracing a tree trunk in our above listed example). In fact a possible preparatory drawing for our painting of this theme, a bacchante bending over and pouring wine with a prostrate Silenus supported by two other bacchante was offered by Christie's in Paris from the Palais Abbatial de Royaumont collection (sale September 19-21, 2011, lot 64 $ 29,138). While in another engraving by Dorigny after Chaperon the bacchante seen from the rear in our painting, is exactly like the bacchante depicted to the left in that etching (Laveissière, catalogue number 26, pages 112-114). The luscious fullness and massing of the figures in our painting can clearly be seen in the red chalk drawing in the Louvre and its engraving by Dorigny after Chaperon of ‘The Drunken Sileneus on a Goat Supported by two Fauns’(Laveissière catalogue number 24, pages 108-110). The three-dimensional and triangular position of his figures against dark woods is directly reflected in a black chalk drawing by Chaperon in the Albertina in Vienna (inv. # 11.587, illus. and described by B. Brejon de Lavergnée et alia , Charles Poerson (1609-1667) , Arthena 1997, page 213, number 129) which could very well be a study for this work and is also comparable to the red chalk drawing of ‘La Nourriture de Jupiter’ in the musée des Beaux-Arts in Besançon. And the exact replica of our kneeling faun to the right holding up Bacchus is found in a copy after Chaperon of the 'Union of Bacchus and Venus' in the Grand Palais in Paris. Equally as noted by Jacquot is the manner of representing the forward inclined heads of the protagonists in a remarkably rhythmical pattern. Chaperon’s cherubs play an integral part in his compositions by emphasizing a sensuality which is restrained in his figures. The charming conceit of depicting them as small fauns with rabbit-like ears is encountered often in Chaperon’s images. The overly developed dorsal muscles of his male fauns are also an immediately recognizable trait. Notable here too is the fairly dense treatment of the drapery in the red loincloth of the faun to the left, visible in our above listed example as well as in many engravings. Dorigny by comparison is far closer to Simon Vouet, their joint master with more dynamic compositions and an entirely different visual canon. Though the beautiful 'Pan and Syrinx' oil by Dorigny at the Louvre approaches our 'Bacchanal', its concept is of an entirely different and more evasive decorative appeal, in line with Dorigny's loyalty to Vouet (which also places the fine 'Allegory' erroneously attributed to Charles Poerson and described above outside Dorigny’s oeuvre). Though Chaperon is known so far mainly by his more somber palette, we can compare our pastel-colored painting to the large 'Ceres' in the London National Gallery whose profile though sharper shows a close resemblance with the features and the slanted eyes of the frontally facing and forward leaning bacchante to the left in our painting. Dr. Humphrey Wine of the London museum puts the relationship of that work to Chaperon in doubt, but even there the cherubs bear a close resemblance to Chaperon’s cherubs while Laveissière links its modeling and colors to the mural attributed by him to Chaperon in the Church of Saint-Nicolas-des-Champs in Paris. That mural though not in good shape reinforces a different aspect of Chaperon’s hand, namely an affinity to Poussin, which is also clearly seen in the figure of the faun to the left in our painting who is shown seen from the rear, an image which is obviously much indebted to the faun to the left in Poussin’s 'The Nurture of Bacchus' at the Louvre. In addition there is the very interesting description by Laveissière in the Nîmes museum catalogue of an oil sketch of ‘Venus and Amor in a Landscape’, which he attributes to Chaperon and which has passed under several names from Vouet to Dorigny, but is close to Chaperon’s manner in " le traitement du volume et des lumières, la pâte généreuse, la draperie cabossée, l'harmonie de roses et de bleu ardoise avec les terres" (in the treatment of volume and light, generous brushwork, pleated drapery and the harmony of pink, slate blue and earth tints). In fact Dr. Laveissière could have described our painting (Laveissière, page 21, color illus. Fig. A). It may well be as Laveissière has suggested about the London 'Ceres' that our canvas was meant for a decorative scheme or even as a design for a tapestry, because the large figures display a classicism unlike other works by Chaperon and with a pastel color eminently adapted to that purpose. All this proves that more exploration of Nicolas Chaperon’s works is necessary and that our large elegant painting must be part of his mature decorative style. The exuberance, the extraordinary rhythm as well as the triangular composition wherein the large figures are typically enlaced and with glances that criss-cross but do not directly engage is also found in the related, though more Vouet-esque and therefore probably somewhat earlier 'Venus, Mercury and Cupid' by Chaperon, acquired by the Louvre Museum from Christie's, New York on January 26, 2005 (lot number 24). But there the dominant color is a subtle orange-yellow, while in our painting a pinkish-red dominates, instead of the darker hues in for example the 'Drunken Silenus' in the Uffizi (which would seem like our example above of Le Faune et sa Femelle, to be datable to Chaperon's Paris period before he left for Rome). In both paintings, this 'Bacchanal' and the 'Venus Mercury and Cupid' sold at Christie's New York which is now at the Louvre as well as a charming but slightly smaller 'Diana pursuing Satyrs' at the Galerie Michel Descours in Lyon, which may well all three be part of the dispersed large decoration of the chateau de Chilly as described in the literature, Chaperon displays his love for a drapery that fluidly waves as if in a strong wind to enliven the scene, which is also notable in all of the classical seventeenth century French masters.

An intriguing oil sketch attributed to Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) of Supplice ordonnée de Mézence (Torture commanded by Mezentius), oil on canvas, size 54 x 43.5 cm., sold in Paris as Entourage de Charles le Brun, Le martyre de saint Gervais et saint Protais. (Mezentius is a figure from Etruscan myth described by Virgil as an extremely cruel king who condemned his victims to death by tying them to a corpse). The attribution has tentatively been approved of by Sylvain Laveissiere. This painting is in fact described as lost and illustrated in Bénédicte Gady, L’ascension de Charles Le Brun, 2011, pages 221, 224 and 225, with three ‘preparatory’ drawings which are illustrated in Lydia Beauvais, Charles Le Brun, Inventaire général des dessins école française au Louvre , 2000, Vol. 2, no. 2838, page 814 (see below), no.2828, page 812 and no. 2826, page 812, all mentioned as dating from the first years of the 1650’s. The final painting was fully described in detail by Claude Nivelon, the pupil and admirer of Le Brun in his Vie de Charles Le Brun et déscription détaillée de ses ouvrages (The life of Charles Le Brun and a detailed description of his works) from 1690, edited by Lorenzo Pericolo in 2004, pages 127-131. What intrigued Nivelon was that Charles Le Brun had a taste for what were called enigmas, riddles to be solved by the pupils of the Jesuits in their school Collège de Clermont which still exists as Lycée Louis-le Grand in the rue Saint Jacques in Paris. It was thought that these enigmas would be instructional and in this case the solution was ”cachet” (seal) because the impression from a corpse would cause a reaction, the death of the man tied to it. There was more to this riddle because the Jesuits were in the person of the then chancellor Séguier closely involved with the Lettres de cachet signed by the king, which condemned people to imprisonment. Jennifer Montague has described in her article “Painted enigma and French seventeenth century art” (Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 31, 1968, pages 307-335), the function and appearance of these ‘enigmas’ and the final version of the painting on pages 318 and 319. The differences between this oil sketch and the more refined ‘preparatory’ drawings as Gady mentions them, makes it impossible that it would be a copy after Le Brun. Then this oil sketch would reflect those drawings which it does not. The logical and the most probable explanation is that our oil sketch is a première pensée, a quick lying down of Le Brun's thoughts for this composition, as Sylvain Kerspern has convincingly argued in Une "enigme" sort de l'ombre (an "enigma" emerges from the shadows) on his website http://www.dhistoire-et-dart.com/approche/LeBrun-Mezence.html. The more worked-out drawings were then produced afterwards for the final version, a tactic often used by Le Brun as well as other artists. The date for Le Brun’s enigma of Supplice de Mézence is said by Nivelon to be just after his return to Paris circa 1646/7, like the fine by the Metropolitan Museum in New York newly acquired “Polyxena”, which shares with our painting the curious composition from right to left as a converging arrow pointing in our case to the corpse, in the Polyxena to a funerary urn. In fact Christie’s in Paris who sold the “Polyxena” as lot 36 on 15 April, 2013, mentions in their catalogue description by Dr. Olivier Lefeuvre our sketch (still as a copy), quote: ”During these years, Le Brun also painted The Torture of Mezence, King of Etruria, for the College of the Jesuits in rue Saint-Jacques in Paris. This lost painting is now only known through an old copy and three preparatory drawings in the Louvre (B. Gady, L'Ascension de Charles Le Brun. Liens sociaux et production artistique, 2011, fig. 130, p. 224). The Sacrifice of Polyxena compares closely with that painting and shares the same vertical format and dimensions (the size of the Torture is not known but Nivelon tells us that the figures are 'life-size') and the same sense of rigorous construction and legibility inherited from Poussin”. It may well be that our oil sketch is the one mentioned in a sale of his collection of paintings, drawings and etchings by Pierre Louis Honoré Corvisart, lawyer at parliament to his colleague Jean-Baptiste Benissein recorded on January 6, 1785, which contained works by Desportes, Le Nain, Deshays etc. and in which our oil sketch is mentioned as " une esquisse de le Brun ayant pour suject 'Le Supplice de Mezence' (a sketch by le Brun, having as subject 'The cruelty of Mezence')". (Patrick Michel, "Le Commerce du tableau à Paris dans la seconde moitié du XVIIIe siècle ", Presses Universitaires 2007, page 198)

An extremely rare and very fine quality work by the late Mannerist painter Jacques de Bellange (Nancy circa 1575 - circa 1616 Nancy) of The Penitent Mary Magdalene, oil on oak panel, size 39 x 29 cm. The attribution is fully supported by Dr. Christopher Duran Comer who published and illustrated the painting as number 36 in his extensively researched 2013 catalogue raisonne of Bellange's works in PDF format. The delicacy of the superbly rendered details and the fine delineation of the figure and objects point directly to a craftsman who was also a superb engraver, for which Bellange is mainly known. Dr. Sylvain Kerspern wrote: J'ai toujours pensé que le lien avec Bellange était indéniable (I have always thought the link to Bellange was undeniable), but Le métier semble d'une souplesse que je ne retrouve pas vraiment dans les dessins ou les gravures, plus nerveux (The manner seems of a suppleness that I do not find really in the more nervous drawings or engravings) and thus by comparing it to a drawing of 'Saint Augustin' in the Bibliotheque nationale de France and to the painting of 'Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata' in Nancy places our painting fairly early in Bellange's career. Bellange mainly known through his incomparable drawings and engravings left us with only one or two paintings which have been attributed to him, namely a large and beautiful canvas of 'Saint Francis Receiving the Stigmata' in Nancy and an 'Angel Gabriel' on panel in Karslruhe, an attribution that has been doubted by Jacques Thuiller (Jacques Thuiller, "Jacques de Bellange", 2001, no. RP4, page 307, illus. ) and which is an image with its rather adipose hands that seems to have far more in common with the style of another Northern Mannerist artist, Bartholomaeus Spranger (cf. Thomas Dacosta Kaufmann,"School of Prague", 1986, 'Diana' in the Budapest Museum, # 2072, pages 272/3, illus. ). However Dr. Comer accepts it as fully autograph together with its pendant in a slightly different style of 'The Virgin Mary'. Our painting is softer in manner and already predicting the flowing dramatic lines of the restless movement of the Baroque. Bellange is an elusive painter who nevertheless displays his manner in his graphic work, which shows a superbly idiosyncratic artist with a very distinctive style. His often elongated figures fill the page like a chimaera with their extraordinary appearance, voluminous waving garments and slender hands. The resemblances of Bellange's figures to the Magdalene in our painting are striking and can be easily enumerated. First of all the turned up face of the Saint is reflected in many of such faces in his works, blowsy and with a narrow cleft chin, small pursed mouth, a short nez retrousse and very expressive eyes, here with heavy under-eye swellings from crying. One observes the resemblance for example to the turned up face of a 'Female Saint with a Lance' in a little-known drawing in Rennes (Thuillier, "Bellange", no. 75, pages 286/7, illus. in color). And even more so in the face of the Virgin in a superb engraving by Bellange (see detail below) of the 'Annunciation' in the Louvre ( Worthen and Reed, "The Etchings of Jacques Bellange", exhibition catalogue Metropolitan Museum, New York 1976, no. 42, pages 66/67, illus. ). The delight in depicting the sheer diaphanous drapery of the Saint's garments slightly blown to the right is displayed often in Bellange's drawings and engravings, where the movement of these dramatize the image and they have become a trademark of the artist. There is also the notable likeness of the figure of the Magdalene in our painting to the double-sided drawing of Une Bohémienne avec deux enfants in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg (Jacques Thuillier et alia, "L'art en Lorraine au temps de Jacques Callot", Nancy 1992, nos. 81a and 81b, pages 264/265, illus.). The finely drawn and usually slender hands with spidery fingers so typical of the Lorraine School of painters are directly reflected in several works with typically the middle finger making a cross with the fourth one, the right hand clasping a breast, the left hand held lower to support drapery or here holding a crucifix. These gestures are most closely seen in the drawing of 'Saint Roch' kept at the Uffizi in Florence (Thuillier, "Bellange", no. 32, pages 184/5, illus. in color). One also notices there the characteristic twist of the body that resembles that of the Magdalene in our painting. What differs in our painting are the heavy breasts of the Saint, because almost all of Bellange's female figures have typically high placed small breasts above narrow waists. But then Mary Magdalene is emblematic of a sensual femininity, lacking in images of the Virgin but entirely logical here. Thuillier lists under Les oeuvres disparus (Thuillier, "Bellange", page 301) two lost paintings of Mary Magdalene dating from 1603 and 1604, a subject matter of which he writes that there were several examples by Bellange. Both of these were painted for the duke of Lorraine, one a large canvas, the other of a different format dating from 1604. Dr. Comer compares the dating of our painting to the drawing of a 'Female Saint with a Lance' in Rennes, mentioned above which as he writes: "is quite loose and elegant and brushy and the physiognomical type is remarkably similar (to our painting) , particularly in the structure of the eye" and mentions the technique of scumbling (softening color or outline by a semi-opaque glaze), combined with a paint-loaded brush (representing dry and wet techniques) as typical of the artist's experimental mindset. He places that drawing because of its blue wash slightly earlier but close to the group of drawings of 'Gardeners' of about 1613. Because so little was known as yet about Bellange's paintings, Pierre Rosenberg who attributed the Karlsruhe painting to Bellange, did not rule out an attribution to Georges Lallemand, another early seventeenth century Lorraine painter (1595-1665), an idea which also seemed possible to Keith Christiansen. Dr. Paola Bassani Pacht however, who is studying Georges Lallemand in depth at present finds that "la Maddalena non e di Lallemand, secondo me, e giusto invece darla a Bellange. Lallemand e meno ambiguo, perverso, la sua fattura e piu decisa, dura..." (the Magdalene is according to me not by Lallemand, and instead correctly to be given to Bellange. Lallemand is less ambiguous, perverse, his manner is more decisive, harder). Christopher Wright writes in a letter dated April 8, 2014: "From the image the attribution seems obvious and that it is interesting to note what Paola Bassani Pacht had to say - after all such pictures were to be influential on Vignon in his later years back in France. It is also interesting that the work is small in scale - not so very different from the scale of the etching by Bellange of the Annunciation where the figure is so similar ! As for the possible dating - all dating of things in this period is tricky as there are so few fixed paintings to reference but as the etching is dated circa 1613 by the etching experts this picture would then come from approximately the same date".

A very charming The Holy Family with the Scriptures by Sebastien Bourdon (1616-1671), oil on canvas, size 46 x 37 cm. This remarkable small work displays the tensions between the classical ancient world and that of coming Christianity. Christ teaches His parents which is in itself a very unusual theme. From His smiling, chubby and blond Person to the fairly austere Madonna who instructs an apparently puzzled Saint Joseph the painting expresses the coming of a changing order, also symbolized by the crumbling classical edifice against which the scene is set. In fact it demonstrates a strong humanist tradition with which the beau ideal was imbued in the artistic framework of the French classical tradition. The style here clearly marks the painter’s definitive characteristics, the heavy profile of the Madonna, the triangular face with the sharply defined features of Saint Joseph and the emblematic figure of the Christ Child. It too shows the influence of Nicolas Poussin. Several elements can be found back in other works by Bourdon and these can be compared with paintings in Dijon and Bayeux (cf. Sebastien Bourdon, 1616-1671, Jacques Thuiller, Strasbourg 2000/1, description and illus. no. 132, page 273 for a similar figure of the Christ Child, the description and color illus. no. 329, page 440 under the chapter Les dernières années for the physiognomy of the Madonna and Saint Joseph as well as the bright coloring - see below) and even more so in a fine engraving by Patigny after Bourdon of ‘The Virgin and Child with Saint John’ (Thuillier, description and illus. no. 330, page 441). Dr.Sylvain Kerspern describes this painting by mentioning the taste of Bourdon for diagonals which make his figures slant and sometimes move out of the composition with a sky filled with the darkly shadowing clouds following his love for Venetian art and in particular that of Veronese. Dr. Kerspern points out the delicate pentimenti in the head of Saint Joseph which show this virtuoso artist at work and which guarantee the autograph character of our painting. The strength of the forms, the firm geometric drapery (also seen in the late ‘Roman Charity’ in Bayeux) and the intense coloring induce Dr. Kerspern to place this work late in Bourdon’s variegated career, after 1650 and more precisely around 1660 when he is at the apex of his renown.

An art-historically interesting and elegant autograph replica of a May from 1705 depicting Saint Paul recevant les adieux des prêtres éphésiens (Saint Paul bid farewell by the Ephesians) by Louis Galloche (1670-1761), oil on canvas, size 92 x 73 cm. The Mays were large religious scenes, 3.60 meters high (about 141.5 inches) commissioned by members of the Paris gold and silver smiths’ guild, called La Confrérie Sainte-Anne des orfèvres parisiens to be hung inside the cathedral of Notre Dame starting in the year 1449 after the One Hundred Years war when the people of Paris were exhausted and needed moral and religious rehabilitation. The May paintings were exhibited before the Notre Dame and then hung inside, but the first examples which were of smaller format are now lost. Thus the earliest still extant date from about 1630 and their name originates indeed from the month of Mai or May, which is a time of renewal and rebirth dedicated to the veneration of the Virgin. The payment was a generous 400 livres (about 10,000 dollars). The painters were expected to make copies of their May entry for the two members of the guild who commissioned the large version for the cathedral. Ours is one of these and the procedure is fully described in the excellent small catalogue of Les Mays de Notre Dame de Paris edited by Annick Notter in 1999 for the Arras museum. The greatest French artists of the period were given this commission and it must have been a very prestigious task. Several of these large Mays have been preserved in the Arras museum where they were sent after the Revolution when the religious symbols were destroyed or dispersed, but the large May of 1705 by Galloche is kept at the Louvre (illustrated in Notter on page 100, as number 76 and described on page 94 and listed in 1763 - see below). Louis Galloche was the last link between the grand style of Le Brun and the more intimate one of the eighteenth century and he had a great reputation during his lifetime which waned over time. This elegant work forms thus an accurate ricordo of Galloche's 1705 entry which was unlike several large Mays not returned to the Notre Dame.

This very appealing and lightly brushed Allegory of The Three Sister Arts, Sculpture, Painting and Architecture by the Italian neo-classical sculptor, painter and architect Antonio Canova (1775-1825), oil on canvas, size 74.5 x 61 cm. was fully authenticated and extensively described in an article ‘The Sister Arts, a pictorial Allegory’ published in 1991 by the eminent Italian art historian and Canova expert Dr. Gian Lorenzo Mellini (1935-2002), formerly at the University of Turin. The article was reproduced as a chapter in Mellini's book ‘Canova: saggi di filologia e di ermeneutica ’ (Canova, essays on philology and hermeneutics), Milan, 1999, p. 87/89 with a color illustration on page 29 and a black and white illustration on page 213. Prof. Mellini makes a close comparison of our painting with that of "Alexander offering Campaspe to the painter Apelles", illustrated in his book in color on page 91 and on page 209 in black and white and he describes it in an article from 1988 and here in a chapter called: 'Canova, painter between antiquity and modernity' (pages 72-78) with a mention of our closely comparable "Allegory of the Arts" on page 84. A heavenly cherub, disguised as Amor descends on a cloud to present to each of the Arts a golden laurel crown, though the more sumptuously clad and adorned Painting is favored, standing between Sculpture and Architecture. Dr. Mellini mentions the extinguished torch of Amor on the grass as indicating that any erotic intrusions are not relevant in honoring the Three Arts. The composition refers of course to the celebrated sculpture of the Three Muses by Canova, though here the composition opens up frontally to the viewer and is interrupted by the winged cherub. Dr. Mellini points out that the hairstyles of the three female figures are from the Restoration period after Napoleon, thus the painting’s date is probably post-1815. They are depicted on the banks of a wide river with on the other side a long row of poplars which points to a Northern Italian setting of probably the river Brenta and the city of Bassano del Grappa with the Asolani hills in the distance. Canova’s birthplace the small town of Possagno in the Veneto became the focus of Canova’s architectural works with his Temple wherein his tomb is located, while the nearby town of Bassano became the locus of the Canova museum. In it is kept a 1806 composition of the "The Dance of the Three Graces with an Amor" (mixed media, 65.5 x 60.6 cm.) (see below), which shows Canova's cathexis of depicting Amor (love) with the three female Graces or rather here with the three feminized Arts. This is enforced by the drawings Canova made and which are kept in the Canova Museum in Bassano. The figure of Painting leans on Sculpture which translated into the language of the painting means that she may be influenced by Sculpture’s forms but she remains well apart from Sculpture, a typical trait of Canova’s independent pictorial designs which Dr. Mellini extensively discusses in this chapter. The coils of her diaphanous veil blown in the wind above and beyond are directly related to the veil floating in the wind above a seated Muse in a drawing kept at Bassano and even reminiscent of the agitated robes of the figure of Eternity in the Deposition in Possagno. Painting caresses Amor with her left hand in a touching gesture as if especially thankful for the honor of the golden laurel crown he has first extended to her.