Charles-Antoine Coypel

Anonymous sale, Corbeil-Essones, Bonduelle and Lancry, 17 May 2003, lots 105 and 104, respectively (as Attributed to Charles-Antoine Coypel).

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. Both of these canvases are unlined, but it seems that the composition of Abraham and the Angel shows remnants of an old adhesive on the reverse of the original canvas. Both of these pictures are in spectacular condition. The surfaces are clean. They are both un-abraded. Accurately applied retouches are only visible under ultraviolet light in Abraham and the Angel around the ankles of Abraham, between the two figures, and in the sky above their heads. In Abraham Preparing to Sacrifice Isaac, retouches have been applied to a group of cracks in the blue fabric beneath Isaac's knee and around the right hip of the angel where some losses and cracking have occurred. The only other retouches are very isolated and far between, this pair should be hung in their current condition.
"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 attribution of these previously unknown paintings to Charles-Antoine Coypel has been confirmed by Thierry Lefrançois, the author of the 1994 monograph on the artist.¹   Though quite finished in appearance, they are studies that give us important insight into how the artist developed his ideas for a subject into a finished composition.  In this case the final work is a larger painting of the Sacrifice of Abraham, now in a private collection in Marseilles, which Coypel presented at the Salon of 1746.²  The Marseilles picture earned a certain amount of notoriety because it was a late entry in the Salon.  Coypel had first submitted Medea and Jason, which was his reception piece into the Académie Royale, painted more than three decades earlier in 1715, but subsequently substituted the Sacrifice of Abraham in its place.  This was apparently an almost unheard of occurrence and generated  surprise as well as some debate as to which of the two was the better picture.

It would appear that at first Coypel was uncertain what aspect in the story of Abraham's Sacrifice to portray, for in the present pair, he paints two different moments described in Genesis 22.  Lefrançois notes that this repetition of a story with variations of time and specific events is characteristic of Coypel's approach to a composition, and he relates it to Coypel’s lifelong involvement with the theatre.³  In the first of the two pictures here we see Abraham preparing for the sacrifice – an anguished but stoic father about to cover his son’s eyes with a blindfold.  In the second painting, an angel appears to halt the sacrifice and Abraham and Isaac greet him with joy.  Coypel uses the same settings and motifs for both scenes, including altars made of stones, the braziers and the knives.  Despite the strong emotional content, the figure’s gestures are very restrained and their feelings are reflected primarily in their faces. 

In the end, Coypel chose to portray the scene of the angel rescuing Isaac.  Abraham and the Angel is almost identical to the painting in Marseilles and was clearly used as a model for the final version.  We can even see a pentimento in the present work where Coypel changes the position of the angel's uplifted arm, moving it slightly to the left, a modification repeated in the finished composition.  

1.  Lefrançois confirmed the attribution in two letters to the present owner:  the first, dated 8 November 2003, discusses Abraham and the Angel, and the second 28 November 2003, Abraham Preparing to Sacrifice Isaac.  For his monograph on the artist see T. Lefrançois, Charles Coypel, Peintre du roi (1694-1752), Paris 1994.
2.  See T. Lefrançois, op. cit., pp. 337-338, as location unknown but subsequently recovered and reproduced in Les peintres du roi 1648-1793, exhibition catalogue, Paris 2000, p. 265, no. R. 284.
3.  See note 1.