JEAN-BAPTISTE-MARIE PIERRE

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Lot n° 31
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Estimation :
3000 - 4000 EUR
JEAN-BAPTISTE-MARIE PIERRE
Amazon fight at the foot of a fortress Black chalk, pen, grey ink, brown wash 16.89 x 14 cm The first years of Pierre Mignard's Parisian career, after his return from Italy, were largely occupied by the surprisingly fruitful activity of a great decorator. In 1658, having just returned from Rome where he had spent more than twenty years, the painter had received commissions for portraits of the king and Cardinal Mazarin, which were sent during the summer to the city of the Popes, to be translated into sculpture by Bernini. But in May, Mignard "the Roman" had already signed a contract to paint the ceiling of the grand salon of the apartment of the Grand Master of Artillery, at the Arsenal (work was to begin the following year) (1). This inaugural commission paved the way for an impressive series of works: the worksites were to follow one another in the homes of the Parisian aristocracy - in the hotels of Vendôme, Epernon, Hervart and Lionne - before finding a magnificent culmination in the gigantic painting of the dome of the Val-de-Grâce, completed in 1666, which was celebrated a little later by Molière. In his poem La Gloire du Val-de-Grâce (1669), Molière did not forget to emphasize the exceptional mastery of the difficult art of fresco that his friend had acquired in Italy. But beyond this technical superiority, it was in the field of large-scale painted decoration in general that "the Roman" demonstrated his excellence, and even a sort of primacy. In this very brilliant context, his work at the Hôtel d'Hervart had a particular importance because of the personality of the owner of the place, Barthélémy d'Hervart. This Protestant of German origin was one of the main financiers in Paris and an essential cog in Mazarin's policy (2). (2) He had just bought from the Duc d'Epernon, in 1657, his large hotel on rue Plâtrière - today rue Jean- Jacques Rousseau, on the site of the Central Post Office - and remodelled it, calling on leading artists: Michel Anguier for the sculptures, and for the architecture not only Louis Le Vau but also an intimate of Mignard, the painter, architect and theoretician Charles-Alphonse Dufresnoy. Mme Hervart (née Esther Vimart or Wymar) may have played a decisive role. She had established a relationship of trust with "the Roman" which had led to important acquisitions of Italian paintings (several masterpieces by Annibal Carracci, the Albanian, the Dominiquin are to be found in the Hervart's hotel...) (3). These established links undoubtedly led to the choice of Mignard to paint the new rooms. These decorations were executed, for the most part, between 1662 and 1664 and were famous (4). They were widely described until the hotel was radically transformed in 1757 to house the Post Office. The ensemble included several rooms, notably a "salon d'Apollon" in which a 1685 text described it as the most beautiful room in Paris for paintings (5). On August 19, 1692, on the occasion of a partition, a visit of estimate (6) described in the hotel this: large arched room with alcove with cap, the whole painted with figures and bas-reliefs feigned on funds of gold except for the cap where is painted by Mons.r Mignard the Mount Parnassus and the Muses (...) a wainscot around the said room and alcove in the frames of which are paintings painted on a gold background and part of a picture (?). A few years before the destruction of this decoration, the count of Caylus gave a particularly precise (and precious!) description of it: one of the works which does the most honour to Mignard. In the oval cap of the ceiling, which may have 14 or 15 by 10 or 11 feet, we see Apollo & the Muses. This piece, although a little grey in colour, is very pleasantly composed, & painted with a lightness of brush which is not ordinary to this Master; the colouring of the four subjects which he painted in the square spaces with which this cap is accompanied, are of a much more vigorous tone in truth, they are executed on a gold background, always more advantageous for the colour; They represent the judgement of Midas, the punishment of Marsyas, the death of the children of Niobe, & the vices driven out of the temple of Apollo, by the virtues solemnized to this God of Arts. The order of these subjects, & the purity of the design makes them very pleasant (7). Now the Parisian library of the Arsenal preserves, in its collection of drawings, a group of five anonymous leaves in which one finds exactly the five compositions described by Caylus. If the quality of these drawings is mediocre, their documentary interest is exceptional: one can certainly not see the hand of
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