Old Master Drawings

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Lot 579
  • 579

Antoine Coypel

Estimate
50,000 - 70,000 USD
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Description

  • Antoine Coypel
  • Study for the funeral of Pallas

  • Red and black chalk heightened with white chalk, on blue paper, squared for transfer in black chalk;
    the mount inscribed in pencil: Hommage de Rome à Lucrèce, soulèvement contre Tarquin.  Dessin du XVIIe S. de collection andré Storelli. 
    also inscribed by the same hand on the reverse: Collection Storelli, Vente aux Gressets (?) (Château de la Pours (?)) Juin 1933 andré Storelli membtre correspondant de la Ste des antiquaires de France

Provenance

André Storelli, his sale, June 1933 (according to inscription on mount)

Condition

Laid down on an old mount. Sold in an elaborate carved and gilded frame. The drawing is in excellent condition. There are some minor fox marks, visible near the upper corners and lower edge, but otherwise the sheet is clear. The blue paper is unfaded and the chalk is very strong and fresh.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

This grand compositional study is preparatory for a painting of the same subject by Antoine Coypel, now in the reserve collection of the Louvre.  The canvas is in a ruined state and barely legible, with major losses particularly in the upper register, making the present drawing of major importance as the only complete surviving record of the composition by the artist.1   

The scene is taken from Book X of Virgil's Aeneid, and depicts the moment at which the body of Pallas is returned to his father, Evander, King of the Arcadians.  Evander had sent his son to fight the Rutilians alongside Aeneas: in battle he had proven to be a fierce warrior, but was killed by the Rutilians' leader, Turnus.  We see Evander meeting the procession outside the walls of his palace, robed in a white tunic, embracing his son's body, which in the painting is cloaked in gold. 

The painting was executed circa 1716-17 for the Gallery of Aeneas at the Palais-Royal, Paris.  It was one of a series of seven large canvases, all depicting scenes from the Aeneid, which were commissioned by Philippe, duc d'Orléans to complete the decoration of a large gallery he had built in 1698-1700.  Three of the paintings are in the Musée Fabre, Montpellier and well preserved, but the remaining four,2 like The Funeral of Pallas, are in a poor state due to Coypel's experimental use of unstable pigments.  Eight figure studies in the same media as the present sheet relate to the painting, all of them in the Louvre.3

Before this drawing came to light, the composition of the painting was known in reverse from a contemporary engraving by Louis Desplaces.4  Comparing the two, it is interesting to note that Coypel altered the background from its appearance in this drawing: removing the arches running parallel with the figures and instead placing the protagonists before a fortified city gate, with a wooded landscape beyond.  The effect is a more open composition, but less overtly classical than as it appears in Coypel's first, grand design.

1. See N. Garnier, Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), Paris 1989, p. 174, no. 132, fig. 447
2. In the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras and the Louvre
3. Idem., figs. 448-455
4. Idem., fig. 446