Noël-Nicolas Coypel

Sale Vienna, Dorotheum, 12 September 1957, lot 26.  

J. Delaplanche, Noël-Nicolas Coypel (1690-1734), Paris 2004, pp. 64 and 93, cat. no. P. 33, reproduced pp. 66 and 93.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This work is wonderfully preserved. It has not been recently restored. The stretcher is old, if not original, and the canvas has an extremely old lining. There are no structural damages. There is clearly no abrasion to the paint layer and no retouching of any note. There is one scratch in the varnish above the head and a very slightly raised area to the canvas in the right bicep of the figure in the center of the right side. If the work were lightly cleaned, or possibly even simply varnished, it should be hung in its current state.
"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."

When Jérôme Delaplanche published his monograph on Noël-Nicolas Coypel, the very first about the artist, he had never seen Venus and Her Companions in person, but knew it only from a sale catalogue of 1957.  Its reappearance now allows us to see for ourselves Coypel’s remarkable ability to capture the female form.  Drawing on his studies from live models as well as his knowledge of Rubens and Italian art, the artist has created here a refined but surprisingly naturalistic portrayal of the female nude, and the picture represents a landmark in his development.  

The present work is a product of his most fertile and productive period.  In it we see Venus and her companions on a narrow bank beside a river.  The background is largely blocked by a rocky bluff, except at the left where there is a view to distant mountains.  Venus has evidently just climbed out of the river and she is assisted in dressing by a putto and a child (or a wingless putto).  Her curvaceous form dominates the composition.  Posed with one arm over her head, reaching for her wrap hanging from a convenient tree branch, she maintains a perfect balance between elegance and naturalism.  Coypel paints her soft skin in smooth, nearly invisible strokes, in shades ranging from almost cream to a deep pink.  He deftly evokes the softness of her flesh in the folds beneath her buttocks, and in a bravura display, highlights the inside of her left leg in a glowing pink of reflected sunlight.

A three-chalk drawing for the figure of Venus is in the collection of the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts (fig. 1).  It is clearly a study from life and drawn quickly, but all the essential features are already there.  Coypel was obviously very pleased with this figure because he used it again in The Alliance of Bacchus and Venus, in the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in Geneva (fig. 2), dated 1726.  She appears in the background as one of the three Graces, this time reaching for an apple.   The present work must date from about the same period.