LOUIS-JACQUES DURAMEAU | Saint Charles Borromeo giving alms, after Mattia Preti

Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), Paris, (L. 2097), son montage avec l'inscription: Pinxit in aede S. Caroli alli Catinari Romae, Mathias Preti Calaber, Eq ; Hierofolimit, et portant l'attribution dans le cartouche: LUDOVICUS /DURAMEAU /DELINEABAT ;
Sa vente, Paris, 15 novembre 1775 - 30 janvier 1776, probablement partie du n°1231 (acquis à sa vente par François Basan) : « Durameau Louis. Onze autres Sujets divers, dessinés à Rome d'après les plus célèbres tableaux de différents grands Maîtres qui ne sont point encore connus par aucune Estampe et que feu M. Mariette avait prié cet artiste de lui dessiner, pour lui en rappeler la mémoire, d'après B. Luti, Trevisani, Imperiali, Passeri, Mola, etc. faits à la sanguine (chariot, 55 l., suivant l'annotation de Saint-Aubin, en marge de l'exemplaire de son catalogue de vente conservé au Museum of Fine Arts de Boston) » ; 
Vente Pigache, Paris, Hôtel d'Aligre, 21 octobre 1776, partie du n°489 : « Dix dessins d'après quelques tableaux capitaux qui sont à Rome, par M. Preti, F. Mola, J. Passeri, J. Chiari, F. Imperiali, J.-B. Sperenza, T. Babuer et C. Melin » (fournel, 24, suivant l'annotation de Saint Aubin) ; 
Vente Auch-en-Gascogne, 29 juin 1988, M^e Briscadieu, expert de Bayser, n°14, repr. ; 
Acquis à cette vente.

Rennes, 2012, n°62 (notice par Anne Leclair) ;
Sceaux, 2013 (sans catalogue)

Gazette de l'Hôtel Drouot, 3 juin 1988, p.111, repr. ; 
A. Leclair, Louis-Jacques Durameau (1733-1796), Paris, 2001, p.210, D. 16, repr.; 
P. Rosenberg et L. Barthélemy-Labeew, Les Dessins de la Collection Mariette: école française, Milan, 2011, p.573, F1760, repr.

The drawing laid down on the Mariette mount is overall in good condition. The medium is fresh. The Mariette mount is well preserved, small damages only at the bottom margin, not noticeable, and few light stains. Sold framed.
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Still on its handsome and well preserved Mariette mount, this drawing relates to the major commission that the famous connoisseur and collector, Pierre Jean Mariette (1694-1774), awarded Durameau, during the latter’s sojourn in Rome between May 1761 and October 1764, as a ‘pensionnaire à l’Académie de France’ (see also lot 1). The artist, who had a reputation for being a good draughtsman, was entrusted by the collector to copy twenty-three paintings from Roman churches in order to ‘lui en rappeler la mémoire,’ in other words to remind Mariette of the paintings he had most admired many years before, during his own trip to the Eternal City in 1717-1718.  This arrangement is documented, as Anne Leclair notes in her Rennes catalogue entry, in surviving correspondence of 1762 between Charles Joseph Natoire, director of the Académie de France, and the Marquis de Marigny, ‘surintendant des bâtiments du roi.’ Natoire, writing in July and again in December, records that he is including Durameau’s drawings for Mariette with his correspondence: ’Je me sers du même rouleau d’estampes pour faire tenir à M. Mariette une douzaine de desseins que le sieur Durameau a fait pour luy…’ (I am enclosing in the same roll of prints, for Mr. Mariette, a dozen drawings done for him by Mr. Durameau).¹ In the present sheet Durameau has faithfully copied the small fresco by Mattia Preti: St. Carlo Borromeo distributing Alms, a work in the controfacciata of the church of San Carlo ai Catinari, Rome, frescoed upon the artist’s return to the city from Modena, in the early 1650s (fig. 1).  The drawing is executed with delicacy and refinement in red chalk, with a reassured handling of the medium which enables the artist to create distinct areas of light and shade, recreating the effect of the painted composition with great accomplishment. Durameau here exploits to the full the pictorial quality and warmth of this medium, and the tonal range and variety that can be achieved thanks to the softness of the chalk, through subtle modulations of the pressure applied to the sheet while drawing.  From some fine, light contours around the figures, it appears that Durameau first traced the composition with a very light sketch, which was then worked up to create the attractive, finished drawing.  Interestingly, though, Durameau has omitted the landscape background seen in the fresco. 

Of the twenty three drawings Mariette commissioned from Durameau, sixteen are known today, including two after Marco Benefial, one of which, by Ango, is in the Adrien collection (see lot 1). For another drawing by Durameau see lot 64.

^1. J. Guiffrey and A. de Montaiglon, Correspondance des directeurs de l’Académie de France à Rome avec les surintendants des bâtiments, vol. XI, Paris, 1901, nos. 5589 and 5624