Charles-Joseph Natoire

Armand Frédéric Ernest Nogaret (1734-1806);
His estate sale, Paris, Hôtel de Gesvres, 6 April 1807 (and following days), lots 27 and 28;
M. Weeb, or comte X***, until sold, Paris, Hôtel des Commissaires-Priseurs, Collection de M. Weeb...catalogue de tableaux anciens... Tableaux appartenant en partie à M. le comte X***, 13 January 1868, lots 69 and 70 (incorrectly entitled 'Galatée sur les eaux [sic] entourée de Tritons et Dieux marins' and 'Bacchus buvant entouré de Faunes et Satyres');
La Rochefoucauld collection;
Private collection.

Paris, Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, July 1736 ('La Source' only); 
New York, Wildenstein, The Arts of France from François 1er to Napoléon 1er: A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York, 26 October 2005 - 6 January 2006, no. 64.

Mercure de France, July 1736, p. 1639;
G. Wildenstein, Le Salon de 1725, compte rendu par le "Mercure de France" de l'exposition faite au Salon Carré du Louvre par l'Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture en 1725, publié avec des notes et documents nouveaux sur les expositions de l'Académie pendant le XVIIIe siècle, Paris 1924, p. 23;
F. Boyer, "Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Charles Natoire, peintre du roi," in Archives de l'Art Français, N.S., XXI, 1949, p. 46, no. 95;
Charles-Joseph Natoire..., peintures, dessins, estampes et tapisseries des collections publiques françaises, exhibition catalogue, Troyes Musée des Beaux-Arts; Nîmes, Musée des Beaux-Arts; and Rome, Villa Medicis, March - June 1977, p. 42; 
C.A. Hamilton and R. Downing, "Mythological Paintings Exhibited at the Salon, 1699-1791," in Loves of the Gods: Mythological Painting from Watteau to David, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Grand Palais, 15 October 1991 - 6 January 1992; Philadelphia, Museum of Art, 23 February - 26 April 1992; and Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, 23 May - 2 August 1992, p. 463;
P. Sanchez, Dictionnaire des artistes exposant dans les Salons des XVII et XVIIIeme siècles à Paris et en province, 1673-1800, Dijon 2004, vol. III, p. 1261;
The Arts of France from François 1er to Napoléon 1er: A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York, exhibition catalogue, New York, Wildenstein, 26 October 2005 - 6 January 2006, cat. no. 64, reproduced in colour, pp. 182, 183 and 395 ('La Source', detail).
S. Caviglia-Brunel, Charles-Joseph Natoire 1700-1777, Paris 2012, pp. 267-8, nos. P75 and P76, reproduced.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvases have both been lined onto keyed wooden stretchers with two horizontal and one vertical stretcher-bar. There are canvas joins on both paintings which are slightly raised but have been secured by the lining process. On "Triumph of Bacchus" the canvas join is approximately 22 cm from the left vertical framing edge and on "La Source" the canvas join is approximately 70 cm from the left vertical framing edge. These canvas joins have been filled and retouched in the past. Paint Surface Both paint surfaces have discoloured varnish layers and should respond well to cleaning although this would obviously involve a considerable amount of work given the size and scale of the paintings. Inspection under ultraviolet light is rather inconclusive due to the discoloured varnish layers making it difficult to identify old retouchings applied beneath the varnish layers. "Triumph of Bacchus" There have clearly been retouchings on the vertical canvas join and a number of other small scattered retouchings are visible under ultraviolet light. The most significant of the retouchings that are identifiable under ultraviolet light are: a band of inpainting along the lower horizontal framing edge and retouchings on the vertical canvas join, two very small areas on the forehead of the female figure on the left of the composition, and other small scattered retouchings. "La Source" There are a few recent small spots of inpainting running down the central canvas join, a number of scattered retouchings on the back of the satyr in the upper right, small retouchings in the green leaves in the upper right of the composition, some retouchings around the framing edges and dark shadows in the lower left of the composition where there is a thin horizontal line of inpainting just above the artist's signature. Summary The paintings appear to be in good and stable condition and should be transformed by cleaning and revarnishIng. The fine details of both paintings appear to be well preserved with little evidence of abrasion or over cleaning in the past and the retouchings that are identifiable under ultraviolet light are not extensive for a painting of this size, and many may well be found to be larger than is really necessary and could be reduced with more careful inpainting.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

the first of these magnificent rococo canvases is first recorded in documentary sources at the time of its exhibition at the Paris Salon in 1736.  Although the Académie Royale held no Salons between 1725 and 1736, a small unofficial exhibiton of works by the academicians was organised at the Louvre in the summer of 1736, and it was here that Natoire was first able to exhibit his Water Nymph ('La Source'). A contemporary reviewer, writing in the Mercure de France describes the scene thus: "..un tableau, représentant une Fontaine, sous la figure d'un Naiade, accompagnée d'un Triton, et de deux petits enfants groupés, avec un Dauphin". By this date the reputation of Natoire as one of the foremost and most precocious painters of his generation was already established. Upon his return to Paris from his studies in Rome in September 1730 he was approved (agréé) by the Académie Royale. Even before he was accepted (réçu) as a full Member in 1734 he had received several prestigious commissions, notable among them a series of paintings for the Comte de Vignory for the chapel of the château de la Chapelle-Godefroy and a La Jeunesse et la Vertu présentant deux princesses de France for the Chambre de la Reine at Versailles.¹

Unfortunately the earliest history of these magnificent paintings is not known. At the time of the exhibition of La Source at the Académie in 1736, the author of the review of the exhibition in the Mercure de France remarked that "Ce morceau est destiné pour la décoration d'un Buffet" ("This piece is intended as decoration for a sideboard"). Whether this somewhat ambiguous remark recorded their intended and commissioned location or merely the painter's wishes is not clear. The tops of both canvases would appear to have been originally shaped, perhaps suggesting that they were to be set into panelling or into a piece of furniture, as the anonymous author of the Mercure also wrote; whether they were extended at the time of painting or shortly afterwards is unknown. The paintings' subsequent location is not recorded until they formed part of the collection of Armand Frédéric Ernest Nogaret (1734-1806), the treasurer of Louis XVI's brother, Charles Philippe, Comte d'Artois, the future Charles X of France. It is very probable that both were conceived as part of a large scheme of interior decoration, perhaps originally independently and then subsequently as a pair (and their shaped tops adapted for this purpose). As has been suggested most recently, the two canvases may originally have been intended as allegories of Earth and Water.  There can be little doubt that by this date Natoire was already the complete master of this decorative rococo idiom. La Source and the Triumph of Bacchus both prefigure and complement perhaps his most famous surviving work in this vein, the decoration of the Salon de la Princesse in the newly restored Hôtel de la Soubise (now the Archives Nationales) in Paris, upon which he was engaged between 1737 and 1739, and which constitute one of the great masterpieces of French rococo decoration.² Natoire's Psyche sauvée des eaux par les nymphes from this set is highly comparable in both overall design and in its virtuoso handling of flesh and the naked female form. The vertical compositon is expertly enhanced by the spiralling interplay of the figures and their gestures. The harmony of the colours is particularly refined, with the dominant hues of blue, green and pink enlivened by a radiant warmth of light. The Triumph of Bacchus was evidently a favourite subject of the artist, for he returned to it on at least three later occasions in canvases of 1738 (untraced), 1747 (Paris, Musée du Louvre) and 1749 (Houston, Museum of Fine Arts).³

 

1. The former are now divided between the Pushkin Museum in Moscow and the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Troyes, and the latter remains at Versailles.
2. Paris, Hôtel de Soubise. Reproduced in the exhibition catalogue Charles-Joseph Natoire..., peintures, dessins, estampes et tapisseries des collections publiques françaises, Troyes 1977, pp. 61-62.
3. Both exhibited, Paris, Grand Palais; Philadelphia, Museum of Art; and Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Loves of the Gods..., exhibition catalogue, under Literature, nos. 40 and 41.