Attributed to Nicolas Chaperon Châteaudun 1612 - before 1656 Rome (?)

The British Rail Pension Fund, by whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 8 July 1991, lot 71 (purchased by the present owners)

This impressive composition shares some stylistic similarities with the Jupiter and Amaltea in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon, which is a preparatory study for Chaperon's painting of the subject¹, and also with his drawing of Bacchus and Midas, in the same collection, recently identified as another connected preparatory study.²  Relatively little is known about the artist's life and work, and only a few drawings from his hand have been identified.  He studied with Vouet, was in Rome between about 1642 and 1649, and disappears from view between 1651 and 1656.  In almost all his known works, however, there is evidence of the strong influence of Poussin, with whose paintings and drawings those of Chaperon are often confused.

1. See Pierre Rosenberg, Il seicento francese, Milan 1971, p. 89, fig. 14

2. See Dessins français du XVIIe siècle dans les collections publiques françaises, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Louvre, 1993, cat. no. 81.