ANTOINE COYPEL | A study of a male seated nude, for Bacchus

Acquis à Paris, galerie Gaubert, en 1981

Paris, galerie Pierre Gaubert, Cinquante académies. Dessins français et italiens du XVII^e et du XVIII^e siècle, 1981, n°28 ;
Rennes, 2012, n°50 (notice par Nicole Garnier) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

N. Garnier, Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), Paris, 1989, n°190, p.191, fig.32

Hinged to the mount at upper margin. Uneven right margin with several nicks and tears. Few small brown stains located near his outstretched hand. A horizontal crease running though centre of the sheet and a few creases at the right margin. Chalk remains fairly strong. Sold framed.
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Strong, masculine and confidently executed, this is a fine example of one of Coypel’s Academy studies. Antoine Coypel was one of the most important artists working during the final years of Louis XIV’s reign and held many prestigious titles throughout his career, including Gardes des Dessins du Roi (1710), Directeur de L’Académie de Peinture (1714) and Premier Peintre du Roi (1715). In 1684 Coypel was elected Deputy Professor at the Académie Royale de Peinture, the start of a long teaching career, during the course of which he would produce many studies like the present sheet, for the purpose of instructing his pupils to draw from life. Nicole Garnier suggests the Adrien sheet was executed circa 1686-87, not long after Coypel’s appointment at the Académie, and suggests that it may be connected with the figure of Bacchus, the God of Wine, in the important commission to decorate the ceiling of the Aurora Pavilion at the Château de Choisy, which Coypel received in 1685, from the Duchess of Montpensier (1627-1693), cousin of Louis XIV and daughter of Gaston d’Orléans.

Garnier, in her entry for the Rennes exhibition catalogue and her 1989 monograph on Coypel, discusses two other drawings that connect to the elaborate project at Choisy. One, in the Louvre, depicts Apollo Driving his Chariot,¹ the subject sketched in a central oval, with other parts of the ornate ceiling design around it; the other, at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, portrays, Saturn taking away the Night.² The Louvre drawing, which allows one to see the layout of the whole painted scheme, indicates there were lunettes where Coypel painted the Seasons, one of them depicting Bacchus, who was often representative of Autumn. The Pavillon at Choisy was demolished in 1746, but Coypel’s paintings were first transferred to canvas by Robert Picault in 1745, with restoration work carried out by Coypel’s son, Charles Antoine Coypel. Unfortunately, the canvas representing Bacchus cannot now be located. Garnier notes that the canvases were documented as being exhibited at one point at the Louvre, in the Galerie d’Apollon, and that a 19th century inventory records the canvases as being rolled up in the museum’s storage.

The Adrien drawing is without doubt one of the finest of Coypel’s academy studies and its plausible connection with the illustrious Grande Madame, Duchess of Montpensier, heightens its allure. Drawn in black chalk and heightened with white chalk it demonstrates Coypel’s strength in portraying the male form. It is also interesting to see how the face has been rendered, as if in movement, with two clearly distinct sets of features visible.

^1. Paris, Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 25849; N. Garnier, Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), Paris 1989, fig. 31, reproduced

^2. Oxford, The Ashmolean Museum, inv. no. WA1949.262; Garnier, op.cit., fig. 33