MICHEL II CORNEILLE | A study of the Virgin and Child giving the rosary to Saint Dominic

Collection Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), Paris (L. 2097, sur le montage Mariette, coupé à l'extérieur de la bande dorée) ; 
Sa vente après décés, Paris, 15 novembre 1775 - 30 janvier 1776, n°1200 : « Corneille (Michel) La St. Vierge tenant l'Enfant-Jésus, qui remet un Chapelet entre les mains de St. Dominique, au bistre. » Dessiné à la pierre noire par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1724-1780) dans la marge gauche de la page 183 de son exemplaire du catalogue de la vente Mariette conservé au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston (inv. 37 713) pour 7 livres 4 sols avec le numéro suivant (n°1201, La Mort de saint Joseph) ; 
Collection Jean-Marc Dupan (1785-1838), Genève (L. 1440) ; 
Sa vente, Paris, 26-28 mars 1840, n°1310 : « Corneille (Michel) Saint Dominique recevant le Rosaire de la Vierge ; grand dessin esquissé à la plume, lavé au bistre et rehaussé de blanc » ;
Vente anonyme, Paris, Christie's, 17 mars 2005, n°90, repr. ; 
Acquis à cette vente.

Rennes, 2012, n°45 (notice par Laure Barthélemy-Labeeuw) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

P. Rosenberg et L. Barthélémy-Labeeuw, Les dessins de la collection Mariette : école française, 2011, n°90, repr.

Laid down. There are some small water stains in the lower left section of the sheet. The white heightening has slightly oxidised in certain areas. Light brown staining throughout sheet. Medium remains fairly strong. Sold unframed.
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This grand, large scale drawing of the Virgin and Child with Saint Dominic was once owned by one of history's finest and most renowned collectors, Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774). Executed in pen and brown ink and wash with white heightening, a technique frequently employed by Ludovico Carracci, whose works Corneille copied whilst working with the Collector Everhard Jabach, the drawing has a strong visual appeal. Corneille adopted this technique in a number of his studies and many of these sheets can be found in the collection of the Louvre.  No painting or engraving of this composition is known but what is distinctive about this particular drawing, as Laure Barthelemy-Labeeuw points out in her Rennes exhibition catalogue entry, is the way in which the pen and ink is applied; with great economy of line, Corneille sketches out basic outlines of architecture and foliage, and even his application of ink within his figures is sparse. These simple lines are strongly contrasted with the dazzling application of white heightening, which adds a painterly dimension to the overall composition and lends a celestial quality to the religious subject matter.

Corneille, described by Louis Antoine Prat as ‘un genie pour le pastiche’,¹ certainly had a talent for imitating other artists, but was able very cleverly to combine his close observation of others with his own individual style, producing elegant and sensitive drawings like the present sheet.

For another drawing by Corneille in the Adrien Collection, see lot 49

^1. L.-A. Prat, Le Dessin Français au XVIIe Siècle, Paris 2013, p. 549