Master Paintings and Drawings Part II
Master Paintings and Drawings Part II
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Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau
Head study of a man in profile, possibly a Rabbi
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Lot Closed
May 26, 03:20 PM GMT
Estimate
20,000 - 30,000 USD
Lot Details
Description
Sold Without Reserve
Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau
Paris 1733 - 1796 Versailles
Head study of a man in profile, possibly a Rabbi
oil on canvas
canvas: 24¾ by 20 in.; 63 by 51 cm.
framed: 32 by 27½ in.; 81.3 by 69.9 cm.
A. Leclair, Louis-Jacques Durameau, Paris 2001, cat. P.7, p. 123.
ENGRAVED:
Robert-François Ingouf le Jeune, c. 1764-65.
This emotive head study by Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau is an exciting rediscovery and an important addition to the oeuvre of the rare and intriguing artist. While Durameau was appreciated during his career, he is little known today and thus the reappearance of this painting illuminates both his interest in the Rembrandtesque tronies of the previous century and his close relationship with Jean-Honoré Fragonard.
Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau was accepted into the Académie Royale in 1754 and studied under Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre and Carle van Loo before moving to Italy in 1760 upon winning the prestigious Prix de Rome. During his time in Rome, Durameau stayed in contact with some of the leading French patrons, making copies after Old Masters for Pierre-Jean Mariette and studying antiquities on behalf of the Abbé de Saint-Non, who was also a close friend of Fragonard. On his return to Paris a few years later, Durameau received several important decorative commissions, both at the Louvre and the Chancellerie d’Orléans, as well as an Apollo crowning the arts for the Opéra Royal at Versailles.1 In 1781 he became a professor of the Ecole de Beaux-Arts and in the same year was commissioned to design the catafalque of Marie-Thérèse of Austria, now in the Louvre.2
The present painting was engraved in 1764 or 1765 by Robert-François Ingouf le Jeune, giving an approximate date for the work, when the artist had returned to Paris. Depicting a white-bearded man wearing a skull cap and looking directly out at the viewer, the painting is executed with the loose, energetic, impasto brushstrokes typical of Durameau in the 1760s and 1770s. Though tempting to identify the subject as a portrait of a Rabbi given the style of his cap, it more likely is a study much in the vein of Rembrandt's tronies.
The painting takes clear inspiration from Rembrandt's tronies, or fancy-dress studies done from life. Rembrandt developed the concept of the tronie by the 1630s and painted many of them from his Leiden period onward, often with students and studio assistants as well as friends and family serving as his models and wearing various styles of hats and costumes (fig. 1). Those depicting old bearded men are sometimes known generically as prophets; here old age is associated with wisdom, not folly, and the paintings served as powerful vehicles for exploration of light, emotion, and the aging process. Govaert Flinck and Jan Lievens (fig. 2), along with many of Rembrandt's pupils from the first decade of his Amsterdam period, continued to produce tronies in large numbers, presumably to meet the great demand for them, and certainly by the mid-18th century these paintings would have been known and collected in France as well.
The connection to Fragonard's own fantasy heads, most of which were completed in the mid- to late 1760s (fig. 3), is particularly intriguing and points directly to a relationship between the two contemporaries. In 1766, just after the completion of the present painting, Durameau and Fragonard would work together on the ceiling decoration for the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, and again the following year they collaborated on the decorative scheme for the Chancellerie d’Orléans. Indeed, at the termination of this latter project, the building’s architect, Charles de Wailly, believed Durameau’s work to be superior to Fragonard’s, wrote to the Marquis de Voyer "you will perhaps not be as happy with the ceiling by Fragonard as with Durameau’s, which has received unanimous praise."3
Whether or not Fragonard and Durameau were looking at each other's head studies directly, it is clear that there was a mutual exchange of ideas given the dating, style and technique of the present painting and its alignment with Fragonard's own work. Here Durameau's fluid yet subtle brushstrokes build on the template of the Rembrandt school and anticipate Fragonard's masterful fantasies produced just months later.
Louis-Jean-Jacques Durameau was accepted into the Académie Royale in 1754 and studied under Jean-Baptiste Marie Pierre and Carle van Loo before moving to Italy in 1760 upon winning the prestigious Prix de Rome. During his time in Rome, Durameau stayed in contact with some of the leading French patrons, making copies after Old Masters for Pierre-Jean Mariette and studying antiquities on behalf of the Abbé de Saint-Non, who was also a close friend of Fragonard. On his return to Paris a few years later, Durameau received several important decorative commissions, both at the Louvre and the Chancellerie d’Orléans, as well as an Apollo crowning the arts for the Opéra Royal at Versailles.1 In 1781 he became a professor of the Ecole de Beaux-Arts and in the same year was commissioned to design the catafalque of Marie-Thérèse of Austria, now in the Louvre.2
The present painting was engraved in 1764 or 1765 by Robert-François Ingouf le Jeune, giving an approximate date for the work, when the artist had returned to Paris. Depicting a white-bearded man wearing a skull cap and looking directly out at the viewer, the painting is executed with the loose, energetic, impasto brushstrokes typical of Durameau in the 1760s and 1770s. Though tempting to identify the subject as a portrait of a Rabbi given the style of his cap, it more likely is a study much in the vein of Rembrandt's tronies.
The painting takes clear inspiration from Rembrandt's tronies, or fancy-dress studies done from life. Rembrandt developed the concept of the tronie by the 1630s and painted many of them from his Leiden period onward, often with students and studio assistants as well as friends and family serving as his models and wearing various styles of hats and costumes (fig. 1). Those depicting old bearded men are sometimes known generically as prophets; here old age is associated with wisdom, not folly, and the paintings served as powerful vehicles for exploration of light, emotion, and the aging process. Govaert Flinck and Jan Lievens (fig. 2), along with many of Rembrandt's pupils from the first decade of his Amsterdam period, continued to produce tronies in large numbers, presumably to meet the great demand for them, and certainly by the mid-18th century these paintings would have been known and collected in France as well.
The connection to Fragonard's own fantasy heads, most of which were completed in the mid- to late 1760s (fig. 3), is particularly intriguing and points directly to a relationship between the two contemporaries. In 1766, just after the completion of the present painting, Durameau and Fragonard would work together on the ceiling decoration for the Louvre’s Galerie d’Apollon, and again the following year they collaborated on the decorative scheme for the Chancellerie d’Orléans. Indeed, at the termination of this latter project, the building’s architect, Charles de Wailly, believed Durameau’s work to be superior to Fragonard’s, wrote to the Marquis de Voyer "you will perhaps not be as happy with the ceiling by Fragonard as with Durameau’s, which has received unanimous praise."3
Whether or not Fragonard and Durameau were looking at each other's head studies directly, it is clear that there was a mutual exchange of ideas given the dating, style and technique of the present painting and its alignment with Fragonard's own work. Here Durameau's fluid yet subtle brushstrokes build on the template of the Rembrandt school and anticipate Fragonard's masterful fantasies produced just months later.
1. See http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#54233ab3-e7bf-43d0-8c2f-975b2f7eb270
2. See https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010067246
3. ‘Vous ne serez peut estre pas aussy content du plafons de Fragonard que celui de Durameau qui réuni tous les sufrages’, Bibliotèque universitaire de Poitiers, Fonds d’Argenson, Papiers Voyer, p. 172. See https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010061037