Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre

Painting is in overall very good state. there is very good retention of the paint surface with nice impasto and lovely coloration. there is a painted gold border all around outer edges that is not visible in catalogue image. under UV: there are some very small and minor scattered retouches on figures, eagle and flying putti. a few here and there in sky. these have been skillfully applied and there is no need for any further work. Offered in an elaborately carved and gilt wood frame.
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This lively oil sketch depicts the Rape of Europa, an episode recounted by Ovid in the second book of his Metamorphoses.  Europa, daughter of the King of Tyre, had caught the eye of Jupiter who disguised himself as a white bull and came to the spot where she played along the seashore with her attendants.  Charmed by the handsome beast, the maidens decorated him with garlands and Europa climbed on his back, whereupon Jupiter carried her out to sea and off to Crete.

Pierre painted this subject on several occasions throughout his career, most notably the grand canvas, now in the Dallas Museum of Art, that he painted in 1750 to complete the salon decoration of his friend and patron Claude-Henri Watelet.  Some years later, in 1757, he returned to the subject again with a tapestry cartoon for the series Amours des Dieux, commissioned by the king as a gift for the marquis de Marigny.  Other artists involved in this series, which was woven at the Gobelins manufactory, included Joseph-Marie Vien, Carl Vanloo and François Boucher.  Pierre’s cartoon, formerly in the Musée d’Arras, was destroyed in World War I and the composition is known today from a red chalk drawing in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art (acc. no. 1982.190).  In the cartoon, Pierre chose to depict the part of story with Europa still on the shore with her retinue.  Two other versions by Pierre that depict variations on the final cartoon appeared on the French art market in 2002 and 2008.¹

The present work is possibly identifiable with a lost sketch depicting the Rape of Europa which was recorded in French sales in 1784, 1785 and 1810 which, according to Nicolas Lesur, was a preparatory sketch for the Gobelins cartoon.²  The measurements for that work are 15 pouces by 15 pouces and a half (approximately 42 by 43.4 cm.), which correspond very closely to those of the present oil sketch.  Though differing substantially from the final cartoon, certain elements are quite similar, such as the simple costume of Europa with bared breast, and the eagle above with fully outstretched wings.

 

1.  See Paris, Sotheby’s, 27 June 2002, lot 28 and Paris, Vente Chayette et Cheval, 12 June 2008, lot 12.
2.  See N. Lesur, Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre 1714-1789, Premier peintre du roi, Paris 2010, p. 284, cat. no. P.194.