Charles de Somme

Private collection, United Kingdom;

From whom acquired by the present owner. 

This charming, unpublished still life has recently been given to Charles de Somme: a newly discovered artist active in Paris in the mid-seventeenth century. The unearthing of an engraving based on one of De Somme's paintings has allowed Claudia Salvi-Faré to first reconstruct a homogenous corpus of works around this enigmatic artistic personality, who was previously known only by way of a few archival mentions.¹ Many of these paintings were previously attributed to the French artist Charlotte Vignon (before 1639-after 1685), the tenth child of Claude Vignon (1593-1670), including the example from the Otto Naumann collection sold at Sotheby's, New York in January 2018 for $375,000.²

In the early eighteenth century, the erudite councilor to the Parliament of Aix, Jean-Baptiste Boyer d'Éguilles (1645-1709), employed Jacob Coelemans (circa 1670-1735) to engrave his collection of drawings and paintings, with the results being first published in Recüeil des plus beaux tableaux du cabinet de […] Jean-Baptiste Boyer d’Aguilles in 1709. This volume includes an engraving of a still life of grapes and peaches set on top of crumpled drapery, accompanied by a caption reading: "peint par Somme et gravé par Jac. Coelemans."³

^In the catalogue that accompanies Coelemans's engravings, De Somme is categorized in the "l’école flamande et hollandaise," but it is stated that "[qu’] Il a vécu en Italie, & quelques-uns croyent même qu’il y a reçu le jour."⁴ Although this information should be regarded as hypothetical, it is certainly interesting to consider the possibility that De Somme belonged, like Gérard Goswin (1613/16-1685/91), Nicolas Baudesson (1611-1680), Pierre-Antoine Lemoine (1605-1665), Pierre Dupuis (1610-1682) and Denis Parmentier (1612-1672), to the generation of still-life painters working in France who made the journey to Rome, and whose style was significantly influenced by this sojourn.

Thus far, Salvi-Faré has brought together eleven paintings by De Somme's hand, which almost always include black and green grapes as well as peaches, arranged on top of carefully crumpled crimson velvet, inside a tight frame.⁵ The present composition, therefore, is rare in its sole focus on the grapes, which are here majestically crowned by an upturned leaf, with other leaves surrounding them. Only one other known example adopts a comparable design.⁶

Although this painting may be relatively simple in terms of its composition, De Somme nonetheless exhibits his mastery of complex artistic techniques by way of his successful depiction of a number of different textures. The skin of each grape is carefully differentiated, while the crispness of the leaves contrasts with the soft red velvet covering beneath them. Such skill speaks to an accomplished still-life painter who would have surely enjoyed success throughout his career, even though so little information about his life has come down to us today.

We are grateful to Eric Coatelem for suggesting the attribution to Charles de Somme upon inspection of digital images.

¹ C. Salvi-Faré, "Tableaux de fruits peints à Paris au milieu du XVIIe siècle: le catalogue inédit du 'sieur de Somme,'" Carnet de recherche du Groupe de Recherche en Histoire de l'Art Moderne (GRHAM), 12 June 2022, consulted on 21 December 2023: https://grham.hypotheses.org/12473#_edn12.

² The Otto Naumann Sale, New York, Sotheby's, 31 January 2018, lot 19 (as Charlotte Vignon).

³ Salvi-Faré 2022.

⁴ "he lived in Italy, and some even believe that he was born there." Salvi-Faré 2022.

⁵ Salvi-Faré 2022.

⁶ Salvi-Faré 2022, cat. no. 11.