Charles-Antoine Coypel

Anonymous sale, Christie's, London, 3 April 1984, lot 93 (as French School, mid-18^th Century);

With Alex Vervoordt, Antwerp (as Rosalba Carriera);

Where acquired by the mother of the present owner, in 1986;

Private Collection, Belgium.

N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, no. J.2472.387.

Son of Antoine Coypel and grandson of Noël Coypel, Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694–1752) came from a family of artists with whom he trained. Painter, engraver and playwright, he was notably the author of history paintings and portraits of members of the court and the aristocracy, First Painter to the King, Director of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1747 and Keeper of the Crown’s Paintings and Drawings from 1722 until his death.

While he is known for his large compositions and history painting, featuring mythological and literary subjects responding to French Baroque taste, he also made his mark with illustrations of Don Quixote by Cervantes, created for the Gobelins manufactory, whose popularity spread beyond France. With a style that bridged the classicism of his father and the emerging Baroque, he contributed to the transition from the history painting of the seventeenth century to the eighteenth century preference for lighter subjects.

He also produced pastels, as testified by this allegory of a young woman holding a mask in her right hand and restraining a cat with her left arm. The work is not mentioned in the artist’s writings and the subject is unknown. It is nevertheless possible to spot the resemblance of the composition to a pastel portrait of Madame Madeleine-Charlotte Silvestre, née Le Bas, First Lady of the Bedchamber to Madame Elisabeth, drawing teacher to the Enfants de France (see N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, J.2472.24).

Some hypotheses have been proposed, for instance that it could belong to a series, perhaps on theme of the seasons, as suggested by the print of an allegory of summer by Simon François Ravenet after Coypel (see T. Lefrançois, Charles Coypel, Paris, 1994, p. 392, P.355A). Her pose and attributes might equally indicate that she is an allegory of malice. She could be identified with an allegory of hypocrisy, with the cat’s eyes trained on the viewer while the mask is turned aside. She thus hints at artifice, duplicity or the game of appearances, as a critique of social airs and power games, with a veiled discourse on actors and the arts.