Jean Lemaire

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 7 December 1977, lot 107 (as Attributed to Jean Lemaire);
Private collection, Munich.

M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, "La nobiltà della scultura. Orfeo Boselli e la cultura degli "antiquarii", in ed. A.P. Torresi, Orfeo Boselli. Osservazioni sulla scultura antica. I manoscritti di Firenze e di Ferrara, Ferrara 1994, p. 37, reproduced fig. 13;
M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, Jean Lemaire, pittore "antiquario", Rome 1996, p. 194, cat. no. 37, reproduced.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar, who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's. UNCONDITIONAL AND WITHOUT PREJUDICE Structural Condition The canvas has been lined and this is ensuring a sound structural support and has successfully secured an overall pattern of craquelure. Paint Surface The paint surface has a reasonably even varnish layer and inspection under ultra-violet light shows different stages of retouching, the exact extent of which is difficult to determine due to the nature of the varnish layers. Retouchings are visible on the detail of the frieze in the lower left of the composition and on the pillars by the left and right vertical framing edges. There appear to be earlier retouchings in the sky and on and between the arches in the upper right of the composition. It would appear also that the right leg of the sleeping man in the foreground has been partially retouched. There are a number of other scattered retouchings and there may well be other areas of inpainting beneath the varnish layers which are not identifiable under ultra-violet light. Summary The painting is therefore in stable condition but I suspect has been quite extensively retouched in the past. Frame The gilded frame has many areas of repair and re-gilding and some more recent 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."

This characteristic work by the ‘architectural’ painter Jean Lemaire has not appeared on the market for a considerable time. The painting dates from the artist’s Roman sojourn and is datable to his early maturity, that is to the mid-1630s. It is particularly close in style to Nicolas Poussin, with whom Lemaire collaborated and with whom he was closely associated: the two artists are known to have shared a house on via del Babuino in 1629.¹

The triumphal arch in the immediate left foreground, with sculpted roundels reminiscent of those on the ancient Arch of Constantine, reappears in a number of compositions by Lemaire. It is a motif often combined with the arched aqueduct-like structure visible beyond: see, for example, Lemaire’s capricci in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and in the Musée Vivenel, Compiègne.² The haut-relief sculpture in the foreground, depicting figures gathered around a satyr playing the pan-pipes and a nymph playing the lyre, is a faithful representation of a detail from the tomb of Jacopo Sannazaro (c. 1536) in the church of Santa Maria del Parto, Naples, by the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Angelo de Montorsoli (see fig. 1). Lemaire has reproduced Montorsoli’s central relief panel exactly, though he has tossed it onto its side, split the marble slab and broken off its pediment to make it appear like an antique fragment. Its presence was first pointed out to Fagiolo dell’Arco by Michel Hochmann and its inclusion here is crucially important for it confirms beyond doubt that Lemaire travelled to Naples to copy works for Cassiano del Pozzo’s ‘Museo Cartaceo’ (or ‘Paper Museum’); a remarkable collection of more than 7,000 watercolours, drawings and prints documenting ancient art, archaeology, botany, geology, ornithology and zoology, assembled by Cassiano and his brother Carlo Antonio dal Pozzo, to which Poussin is also known to have contributed.³

Lemaire has designed a capriccio of ruins as a backdrop to the classical theme of Mercury and Argus, a story taken from Ovid’s Metamorphoses (I: 668-721). Argus is shown reclining in the foreground, his red-and-blue robe starkly reminiscent of Poussin, whilst the heifer Io browses beyond, with the pipe-playing Mercury leaning against an arch. Lemaire treated the subject on another occasion; in a painting in the Blaffer Foundation, Houston, where the protagonists are given greater prominence, and in the latter's related preparatory drawing in Lyon.⁴

1. In September 1630 Poussin married Gaspard Dughet’s sister, Anne-Marie, and subsequently moved in with his brother-in-law.
2. See M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, under Literature, 1996, p. 161, cat. no. 8, and p. 172, cat. no. 17, both reproduced in colour.
3. Cassiano del Pozzo’s agenda mentions a ‘Monsù Le Mere’ at work on this project, copying ‘bassirilievi’ and ‘alcune cose’ in Naples (see F. Solinas, ”Percorsi Puteani: note naturalistiche ed inediti appunti antiquari”, in Cassiano del Pozzo, Rome 1989, p. 122). The ‘Museo Cartaceo’ was sold by Cassiano’s heirs to Pope Clement XI Albani where it remained until it was acquired (for the most part) by King George III in 1762. It is now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle.
4. Fagiolo dell’Arco, op. cit., p. 191, cat. no. 34, reproduced in colour. The drawing in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (inv. X.1029.2) is reproduced in ibid., p. 228, cat. no. D7.