Jean-François de Troy

Anonymous sale, Paris, Drouot, 30 March 1984, lot 41.

C. Bailey, Les Amours des Dieux, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Philadelphia and Fort Worth 1991-92, p. 118, reproduced p. 121, fig. 7;
C. Leribault, Jean-François de Troy, Paris 2002, p. 247, cat. no. P.79, reproduced.

"The following condition report has been provided by Henry Gentle, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. The original canvas is lined and the paint is stable and flat. There are minor losses along the edges and also detected across the surface, e.g. left of the sitter's right foot, shadows left and right of the drapery and the top of the console table on the right. There is a noticeable filigree of pale shrinkage cracks to the blue drapery, left and right. The overall condition can be considered good with well preserved impasto. The varnish is discoloured and its removal would improve the tonality. Offered in a carved and gilt wood frame with some losses."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Leribault describes the present work as "particulièrement séduisante" and suggests that it may be a pendant to a lost Jupiter and Semele known through an engraving by Duflos.²  DeTroy re-used the pose of Danaë for one of Lot's daughters in a canvas from 1727, now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Orleans (inv. no. 832).  Another treatment of the same subject by de Troy, formerly in the collection of Pierre Crozat, is now known only through the engraving by Daullé and Levesque, and a third was sold Versailles, Chevau-Légers, 6 December 1998.³

 

1. Leribault , op. cit., p. 246, cat.no. P.78, engraving reproduced.
2. Idem, p. 289, cat. no. P.133, reproduced.
3. Idem., pp. 231, 297, cat. nos. P45 and P147, reproduced.