ATTRIBUTED TO LOUIS TESSIER | ALLEGORY OF THE ARTS; ALLEGORY OF DESIGN AND ARCHITECTURE

With Chaucer Fine Arts, London, 1985;

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's 31 May 1990, lot 144;

There acquired for $71,500. 

Paintings and Drawings, Sculpture, Works of Art, exhibition catalogue, London 1985, cat. no. 25, reproduced no. 25.

This pair of paintings is representative of the eighteenth-century French artist Louis Tessier, whose oeuvre consists mostly of still-life compositions with elements of architecture and design. The foreshortened presentation of the objects depicted indicates that these works were likely created as overdoors; however, it is the probable commission of these works by a Dutch patron that distinguish them.  

All the inscriptions are in Dutch and the book has been identified as a popular volume of poetry titled Trou-ringh (Wedding Ring) by the celebrated Dutch author Jacob Cats. Furthermore, the architectural floorplan's measurements are in voeten, and the floorplan is characteristic of the long, narrow grachtenhuis (literally "canalside house") found alongside the canals in Amsterdam. It has been suggested that the floorplan might even represent the home in which the present paintings were to hang, with the book of poetry inferring that the home might be for a newly-married couple.

The presence of the various objects in each of the paintings points to an allegorical interpretation. Items such as the lyre, the quills, the book, foliage, palm spray, and the Mask of Comedy used in theatrical performances, all refer to the Arts while the architectural floorplan, instruments, maps and diagrams represent the elements of Design.  

An alternative attribution to the French painter the Marquise de Grollier, née de Fuligny-Damas, was suggested by Michel Faré at the time of the 1990 sale.