Lot 74
  • 74

François Le Moyne

Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
bidding is closed

Description

  • François Le Moyne
  • An allegory of drawing
  • Black and white chalk;
    bears numbering upper right: 23

Provenance

Sale, New York, Christie's, 10 January 1996, lot 203

Condition

Attached at four corners. Light brown staining throughout, more visible in the upper section of the sheet. Small repaired tear in the upper left corner. Chalk still strong.
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.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

Catalogue Note

The present drawing, executed in Le Moyne's characteristic combination of black and white chalk, is a study for the artist's painting the Allegory of Drawing, now housed in the Pushkin State Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow.1  The painting was executed by Le Moyne for his friend, the 18th-century engraver Jean-Baptiste Massé, and was originally displayed with its pendant the Allegory of Music, which entered the collection of the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, in 1923.2  As Jean-Luc Bordeaux notes, it was the Comte de Caylus who first identified the two paintings as pendants, writing "Le Génie du Dessin qui découvre la Vérité, et pour pendant celui de La Musique, l'un et l'autre peints pour M. Massé, son ami".3

As Bordeaux further notes, the composition of these two pictures "with their groupings of healthy putti should be regarded as the direct antecedents of Boucher's popular canvases dealing with children sporting, such as L'Amour Oiseleur and L'Amour Moissonneur".4  Bordeaux therefore dates the two Russian paintings to circa 1727-29, giving us a terminus ante quem of 1729 for the present drawing.

1. J.-L. Bordeaux, François Le Moyne, 1688-1737, and his generation, Paris 1984, pp. 106-7, no. 63, reproduced fig. 66

2. Ibid., p. 106, no. 62, reproduced fig. 65

3. Comte de Caylus, 'Vie de François Lemoine,' in Vies d'artistes du XVIIIème siècle, Paris 1910, p. 66

4. Bordeaux, op. cit., p. 107; for the drawings, see A. Ananoff, François Boucher, Lausanne and Paris 1976, vol. I, nos. 62 and 63