Lot 217
  • 217

Charles-Joseph Natoire

Estimate
30,000 - 50,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • Charles-Joseph Natoire
  • Putti adorning a swan with a garland of flowers
  • signed and dated lower right: NA.RE 1760
  • oil on copper

Provenance

Private collection, France;
With Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., London, 2008.

Exhibited

New York, Jean-Luc Baroni Ltd., 18 - 31 January 2008, no. 26.

Literature

Old Master Paintings, exhibition catalogue, Florence 2007, cat. no. 26, reproduced in colour, with a detail.

Condition

Copper plate is flat with no major dents. The picture is in overall good condition. The paint has darkened somewhat in the flesh tones of the two leftmost figures. There are a few scattered retouches in the sky, and in the figure at left, as well as in the swan, but these have been applied well. In a carved, giltwood frame.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
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Catalogue Note

A contemporary of François Boucher, Natoire first trained with his sculptor father in Nîmes before moving to Paris, where he came under the influence and direction of the painter François Lemoyne. It was in Rome, however, where Natoire travelled to in 1723 – two years after winning the Prix de Rome – that the artist truly found success. He received numerous commissions from French patrons living in the city, including the ambassador De Polignac, and upon returning to Paris in 1730 he was employed on royal and aristocratic commissions. In 1751 he returned to Rome, where he was appointed director of the Académie, and he remained in Italy until his death in 1777.

It is from Natoire's  second Roman sojourn that this exquisite copper of Putti adorning a swan with a garland of flowers dates. Its subject matter and preciosity would indicate that it was a commission for a private patron, for whom light-hearted allegorical subjects would have appealed. The copper support is extremely rare for Natoire: the only other example in his oeuvre is that of his large Expulsion from Paradise dating from twenty years earlier (now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York). Here the artist has chosen copper as his support to give the paint surface a warmth and smoothness which would otherwise have been lacking on canvas. The painting, clearly signed and dated 1760, is a perfect example of the small-scale pictures of mythological subjects to which Natoire refers in letters written to Marigny and Duchnese in the 1750s and '60s. Indeed in a letter dated April 1st, 1760, Natoire writes to Marigny that he has just given the Maltese ambassador 'un petit morceau de ma façon' and he relates that a few days previously he had given another to the French ambassador.1  These works are not described in any greater detail but, given that the present work is dated 1760, it seems highly plausible that either could be identifiable with this copper.

A large oval canvas of the same subject, albeit of different compositional arrangement, is in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Troyes.2

We are grateful to Susanna Caviglia-Brunel for informing us that this painting will be included in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné on Natoire (as cat. no. P.253).


1. P. Violette, in Charles-Joseph Natoire, exh. cat., Troyes, Nîmes & Rome, March – June 1977, p. 46.
2. 95 by 80 cm. See F. Boyer, "Catalogue raisonné de l'oeuvre de Charles Natoire, peintre du roi (1700-1777)", in Archives de l'Art Français, 1949, p. 38, no. 37.