Old Master Drawings

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Lot 93
  • 93

Noël-Nicolas Coypel Paris 1690 - 1734

Estimate
10,000 - 15,000 GBP
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Description

  • Noël-Nicolas Coypel
  • studies of two female nudes
  • red, black and white chalk, and stumping, with touches of ochre chalk

Provenance

Dr. & Mrs. Francis Springell,
by whom sold, London, Sotheby's, 27 April 1977, lot 93 (as Charles Antoine Coypel);
Purchased, New York, Christie's, 9 June 1981, lot 51 (as Antoine Coypel)

Exhibited

Edinburgh, National Gallery of Scotland, Old Master Drawings from the Collection of Dr. & Mrs. Francis Springell, 1965, cat. no. 60 (as Charles Antoine Coypel) 

Catalogue Note

These studies are preparatory for two reclining nymphs in Noël-Nicolas Coypel's painting Neptune rescuing Amymone, in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Valenciennes (fig. 1).1  The painting, dating from 1720 and presented to the Académie in the same year, depicts Amymone, a danaid loved by Neptune, being rescued by him from the clutches of a satyr.2  The drawing was almost certainly studied from life, and there are differences from the painting:  the figure to the left is draped, and her left arm points towards the centre of the composition rather than being placed above her head, and her companion to the right wears a tiara of reeds rather than a veil.


1. J. Delaplanche, Noël-Nicolas Coypel (1690-734), Paris 2004, cat. no. P.8, p. 26

2. Delaplanche, op cit., p. 82