Alexandre-François Desportes

With Derek Johns, London, 1997-1999;

Count and Countess de Viel Castel;

From whom acquired by the present collector, 2018.

P. Jacky, François Desportes (1661-1743), Ph.D. dissertation, Université de Paris IV-Sorbonne 1999, vol. IV, p. 801;

P. Jacky and G. de Lastic, Desportes Catalogue Raisonné, St-Rémy-en-l'Eau 2010, p. 223, cat. no. P 804, reproduced in color (as Dejeuner maigre).

One of the most important French still-life painters of the 18th century, Alexandre-François Desportes served as the official painter of hunting scenes and animals to both Louis XIV and Louis XV. He was trained in Paris in the Flemish style and spent a brief period in Poland before being reçu into the Académie Royale as an animal painter in 1699. Desportes was instrumental in popularizing still life painting in 18th-century France. Inspired by Dutch and Flemish banquet paintings of the late 17th century, in which trophies of the hunt would be arranged with an abundance of fruit, vegetables and flowers on tabletops and in landscape settings, his pictures fit well into the Rococo taste that was in favor amongst the French aristocracy. 

Although interestingly entitled as a 'Déjeuner maigre' in the literature, Alexandre-François Desportes presents here a rich epicurian display of oysters, figs, peaches, radishes, and melon along with a loaf of bread and a carafe of wine, meticulously arranged in a harmonious composition. The varied assortment is displayed on a table set within an elegant interior suggested by the finely crafted woodwork visible in the left background. On the right, a pair of silver-gilt écuelle stands are leaned against the wall. These exquisite objects can be identified as models of famed Parisian silversmith Thomas Germain (1673-1748) who was named as “sculptor-silversmith to the king” by Louis XV and was frequently commissioned by European royalty.

This meticulous approach translates the knowledge of the Flemish realism that Desportes learned early, especially during his training in Nicasius Bernaerts (1620-1678)'s Paris studio. After being accepted at the Académie royale in 1699, Desportes produced many studies of plants from nature between 1704-1708, which inspired his later, extravagant still lifes such as the present example. Although the present painting is not precisely dated, another work of Desportes with a similar composition, dated 1739, suggests that it likely corresponds to the same period of the artist's career.¹

1. see Jacky and de Lastic 2010, p. 223, cat. no. P 803.