Louis Richer

Sir Timothy Clifford (both bear his mark, not in Lugt)

Louis Richer was heralded in his own time as an important draughtsman and print maker, and was also esteemed by the great 18^th-century collector-connoisseur Pierre-Jean Mariette, but until very recently, his undoubted artistic abilities had not been fully recognised by modern scholarship, perhaps because so few of his drawings seem to have survived.¹  Richer is believed to have been active as an artist by 1640.  His popularity among his contemporaries was perhaps based on his clear ability to imbue his work with scathing satire.  Mariette noted that the artist's oeuvre consisted of three main elements: his anti-Spanish satirical prints, which he both designed and engraved; his designs for prints engraved by others, the subjects of which ranged from political satires (often directed against the Spanish) to allegorical figures and historical scenes; and his own original etchings, using an unusually fine point, which were close in style to the work of Noël Cochin.² 

Given that the Franco-Spanish war was in full spate between 1635 and 1659, it is hardly surprising that Richer devoted such efforts to the mocking of Spaniards.  Nor was this theme the sole preserve of Richer, or even of his fellow French artists, as is clear from Pieter Jansz. Quast’s 1642 treatment of a very similar subject (see lot 89, below).

Although both these drawings are indented for transfer, it has so far only been possible to connect one of them with a known print.  The engraving, portraying the Spanish General Beck being humiliated by the French following the Battle of Lens, his lips patronisingly grasped together by the victor, was executed after Richer's design by Boullanger, and published in 1648 by Bertrand, under the title: Le Bek de l’Espagnol pris par le François.  In its handling, this characteristic grey wash and black chalk drawing is closely comparable to another drawing by Richer, also produced for a print, entitled Nous pâtissons,³ in which the figures of France and Spain are once again represented, in near identical garb, and the artist also pays special attention, as here, to his Spaniard's particularly boisterous moustache.

The second drawing within this lot, depicting two cripples, is identical in handling to the other and must surely have been executed in print by Richer himself or another engraver. The identities of the two men are hard to identify, but the moustachioed figure on the left is, in all likelihood, a wounded Spanish soldier, and the demeaning caption, which translates as 'Two, who are only worth as much as one', must surely refer to the parlous situation in which Spain found itself at this moment in its history.

1. See B. Brejon de Lavergnée et al, Dessins français du XVII^e siècle, exhib. cat., Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, 2014, pp. 70-71, under no. 30, reproduced and p. 151, under no. 86, reproduced
2. See B. Gady, 'Louis Richer, dessinateur, graveur et satiriste au milieu du XVII^e siècle', in Dessiner pour graver, graver pour dessiner: le dessin dans la révolution de l’estampe, Paris 2012, p. 135
3. Brejon de Lavergnée et al, op. cit., pp. 70-71, under no. 30, reproduced