Jean-Jacques Lagrenée

Anonymous sale, Tajan, 25 October 2001, lot 117 (as School of Pierre Hubert Subleyras);

Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 15 June 2017, lot 69.

A. Donnet, Description des environs de Paris, Paris 1824, p. 324;

A. Hachette, Le couvent de la Reine à Versailles (lycée Hoche), Paris 1923, p. 95;

M. Sandoz, Gabriel Briard 1725-1777, Paris 1981, p. 150, pp. 148-150, n° 58, 5);

M. Sandoz, Les Lagrenée, II. Jean-Jacques Lagrenée (le jeune) 1739-1821, Paris 1988, p. 223 and 232, nos. 130 B) and 144 A);

M. Müntz de Raïssac, 'Richard Mique (1728-1794), Architecture religieuse et temples profanes', dans Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art français, Paris 2002, p. 143 ;

L'Apothéose du geste, exh. cat., Paris 2003, p. 228, illustrated; 

Peintures françaises des XVII^e et XVIII^e siècles des musées d'Amiens, exh. cat., Paris 2006, p. 220, mentioned in the notice of the Saint Augustin painting by Lagrenée.

Salon de l'Académie royale de peintures et sculptures 1781, Paris, no. 45.

This Saint Gregory is one of four sketches produced by Jean-Jacques Lagrenée, as preparation for the decoration of the chapel of the Augustine convent in Versailles.

The project for the convent was initiated by Queen Marie Leczinska in 1766 and continued after her death by her daughters. It was entrusted to the architect Richard Mique who designed a church with a chapel in the shape of a Greek cross, surmounted by a cupola. Initially, the decoration was commissioned from the painter Gabriel Briard, but he only had time to finish the Assumption of the Virgin in the cupola before dying prematurely in 1777. Jean-Jacques Lagrenée assumed responsibility for completing the decorations: he painted the four pendants representing the Fathers of the Church, Saints Augustine, Gregory, Ambrose and Jerome. For each one, Lagrenée prepared a sketch which he exhibited in the Salon in 1781.

Saint Gregory is shown seated on the papal throne with a nimbus; an angel and a dove flutter beside him. Seen da sotto in su, he seems to be listening to God’s words before transcribing them in his writings. The sketch, intended for display at the Salon, already has a finished composition, almost identical to the final painting. It nevertheless reflects the artist’s experimentation, especially in a pentimento above the Pope’s finger, which reveals a glimpse of the shape of a dove. 

The decorations can still be seen in the chapel, now part of the Lycée Hoche, but only two sketches have survived: one portraying St Augustine, now in the Musée de Picardie in Amiens (inv. M.P.P. 2072-626) and the present painting, which reappeared in the 2001 sale.