CHARLES LE BRUN | Jupiter seated on clouds

Paris, commerce d'art, 1976

Rennes, 2012, n°41 (notice par Bénédicte Gady) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

L. Beauvais, Musée du Louvre. Inventaire général des dessins de Charles Le Brun, Paris, 2000, t. I, p.322, sous n°1118

Hinge mounted to a modern mount. There is evidence of some slight discolouration to the extremities and a light brown stain to the centre of the lower edge. There are old repaired tears to the upper left and right corners and old creases to the lower left and right corners. There is evidence of some slight surface dirt throughout, however the medium remains fresh and vibrant throughout this impressive sheet. Sold unframed.
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The subject of this imposing drawing is Jupiter, the King of the Gods, seated on a cloud, holding two of the symbols of his power - lightning bolts and a sceptre - while an eagle perches at his feet. Though the drawing bears an old attribution to Poussin, a towering figure of the classical French Baroque style, it can in fact be securely attributed to Charles Le Brun, the unrivalled premier peintre of Louis XIV.

Executed in a distinctive combination of grey wash and black chalk, the present sheet has been compared by Lydia Beauvais to a technically and stylistically similar drawing depicting Minerva,¹ in the substantial holding of drawings by Le Brun in the collection of the Musée du Louvre, Paris. Both the characteristic handling of the wash and the distinctive shape of the framing lines, as well as the near identical dimensions and the subtle evocation of the landscapes found in both the Adrien drawing and the Louvre sheet, seem to point to these two works having been created for the same commission. Though no decorative project incorporating these two Gods, presumably alongside others, is known, Bénédicte Gady points out in her informative entry for this drawing in the Rennes exhibition catalogue² that Le Brun was well known to reuse successful designs for different decorative schemes, often at extraordinarily varied dates, throughout his career. While the precise dating of the Adrien drawing remains elusive, Le Brun did incorporate the figure of Jupiter as one of the central medallions of an embroidered wall hanging (fig.1), now in the Jagiellonian University Museum, Krakow, which is thought to date from circa 1686-87. This hanging, which also includes the arms of Le Brun’s patron, François de Blanchefort, Chevalier de Créquy, differs from the Adrien drawing in the positioning of Jupiter’s left leg, but otherwise corresponds very closely in overall design.  ^1. Beauvais, op. cit., p. 322, no. 1118, reproduced

^2. Exhib. cat., Rennes, op. cit., p. 122