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88
LÉPICIÉ François-Bernard (1698-1755)
The item was sold for 27 300 €
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LÉPICIÉ François-Bernard (1698-1755)
autograph manuscript, [Catalogue raisonné des tableaux du Roi. Écoles du Nord]| 150 folios (35.5 x 23.5 cm), leaves in soft vellum folder, in a vellum-covered slipcase, title on upper front cover.
Precious unpublished work file for the catalog of the King's paintings.
The engraver Bernard-François LÉPICIÉ had been appointed permanent secretary and historiographer of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Author of a Recueil des vies des premiers peintres du Roi (1752), he was commissioned by Charles-François Le Normant de Tournehem, director general of buildings, academies and manufactures, uncle of La Pompadour, to write the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux du Roi, with an abridgement of the lives of the painters, of which only two volumes were published in 1752 and 1754, devoted to the Florentine and Roman, Venetian and Lombardy schools. In the Foreword of the first volume, Lépicié wrote: "I first divide this collection by schools: I give a summary of the life of the Artists whose works are in this magnificent Collection, I trace a slight idea of their talents, their progress & their way of working, & I finish by the Catalogue of their paintings, of which I indicate the subject, & of which I mark the sizes with the most scrupulous attention. [...] This first volume will contain the Florentine School and the Roman School| I will give the other schools in the same order| they are already well advanced, and I do not intend to interrupt the work. It is the file of this work that we present here, devoted mainly to the Northern Schools, largely advanced, but which the death of Lépicié left unfinished and unpublished. The notes are written in brown ink on single or double sheets of laid paper, written on both sides or only on the front. Some are marked on the back or in the margin "to be reviewed" or "done", or bear the name of the painter| the sheets should have been folded and filed in such a way as to show the title. Several entries show successive drafts, on the same page or on separate sheets: summary entry, draft, corrected draft, final version .... A note on an introductory sheet indicates: "Vies de quelques Peintres que M. Dénard Avocat gendre de M. Le Moyne sculpteur avoit ecritte pour moy et que je me proposois de faire servir au catalog raisonné des Tableaux du Roy". If this file is in Lépicié's hand, there are numerous corrections or remarks by various hands that we could not identify with certainty. We know from a handwritten note by Pierre-Jean MARIETTE at the end of his own copy of Volume I of the published Catalogue (INHA 4° F 308), that he was one of Lépicié's collaborators ("M. Lépicié, author of this Description des Tableaux du Roi, was my friend. He asked me, when he was in charge of this work, to help him & I agreed all the more willingly, as it was a completely new work for him, & on which his fortune depended in some way. He presented me his manuscript, I read it, and I retouched some of the Lives of the Painters that he had composed. I went further and wrote some of them, or more quickly I started again a certain number which seemed to me too weak, & he had them printed as I had supplied them to him. Particular considerations did not want me to reveal this secret, as long as he lived, but today that he is no more, I believe that it is well allowed to me to claim a good which belongs to me ") Besides Mariette, one can think of Carle Van Loo, of Charles-Nicolas Cochin, who was perpetual secretary of the Academy of painting, of Pierre-François Basan, or of Claude-Henri Watelet, and also of the sponsor Le Normant de Tournehem. A draft of two letters, in the margin of a note on Rubens, has brought forward the name of Jean-Marc Nattier, to whom this manuscript was first attributed (his name appears in the title engraved on the box containing this manuscript)| it concerns the execution and payment of a portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour: "I am uncertain, M. if you have received the letter I had the honor to write you about the portrait of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour and in which I asked you to honor me with a word of reply. The question is whether I should present my memoir to the Director General, or whether Madame la Marquise will order the payment of it as she did for Mr. Boucher. [I will not speak to you of my pains nor of the nine months of work that I used to make five portraits in a row to succeed in executing the one that I had the honor to present to Madame la Marquise. However, as there is only one, it is also on it that I must stop, and I cannot do better than to rely on the generous kindness of Madame la Marquise. All that I could do to make him what he is, must be forgotten, unless it is out of friendship.
autograph manuscript, [Catalogue raisonné des tableaux du Roi. Écoles du Nord]| 150 folios (35.5 x 23.5 cm), leaves in soft vellum folder, in a vellum-covered slipcase, title on upper front cover.
Precious unpublished work file for the catalog of the King's paintings.
The engraver Bernard-François LÉPICIÉ had been appointed permanent secretary and historiographer of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Author of a Recueil des vies des premiers peintres du Roi (1752), he was commissioned by Charles-François Le Normant de Tournehem, director general of buildings, academies and manufactures, uncle of La Pompadour, to write the Catalogue raisonné des tableaux du Roi, with an abridgement of the lives of the painters, of which only two volumes were published in 1752 and 1754, devoted to the Florentine and Roman, Venetian and Lombardy schools. In the Foreword of the first volume, Lépicié wrote: "I first divide this collection by schools: I give a summary of the life of the Artists whose works are in this magnificent Collection, I trace a slight idea of their talents, their progress & their way of working, & I finish by the Catalogue of their paintings, of which I indicate the subject, & of which I mark the sizes with the most scrupulous attention. [...] This first volume will contain the Florentine School and the Roman School| I will give the other schools in the same order| they are already well advanced, and I do not intend to interrupt the work. It is the file of this work that we present here, devoted mainly to the Northern Schools, largely advanced, but which the death of Lépicié left unfinished and unpublished. The notes are written in brown ink on single or double sheets of laid paper, written on both sides or only on the front. Some are marked on the back or in the margin "to be reviewed" or "done", or bear the name of the painter| the sheets should have been folded and filed in such a way as to show the title. Several entries show successive drafts, on the same page or on separate sheets: summary entry, draft, corrected draft, final version .... A note on an introductory sheet indicates: "Vies de quelques Peintres que M. Dénard Avocat gendre de M. Le Moyne sculpteur avoit ecritte pour moy et que je me proposois de faire servir au catalog raisonné des Tableaux du Roy". If this file is in Lépicié's hand, there are numerous corrections or remarks by various hands that we could not identify with certainty. We know from a handwritten note by Pierre-Jean MARIETTE at the end of his own copy of Volume I of the published Catalogue (INHA 4° F 308), that he was one of Lépicié's collaborators ("M. Lépicié, author of this Description des Tableaux du Roi, was my friend. He asked me, when he was in charge of this work, to help him & I agreed all the more willingly, as it was a completely new work for him, & on which his fortune depended in some way. He presented me his manuscript, I read it, and I retouched some of the Lives of the Painters that he had composed. I went further and wrote some of them, or more quickly I started again a certain number which seemed to me too weak, & he had them printed as I had supplied them to him. Particular considerations did not want me to reveal this secret, as long as he lived, but today that he is no more, I believe that it is well allowed to me to claim a good which belongs to me ") Besides Mariette, one can think of Carle Van Loo, of Charles-Nicolas Cochin, who was perpetual secretary of the Academy of painting, of Pierre-François Basan, or of Claude-Henri Watelet, and also of the sponsor Le Normant de Tournehem. A draft of two letters, in the margin of a note on Rubens, has brought forward the name of Jean-Marc Nattier, to whom this manuscript was first attributed (his name appears in the title engraved on the box containing this manuscript)| it concerns the execution and payment of a portrait of the Marquise de Pompadour: "I am uncertain, M. if you have received the letter I had the honor to write you about the portrait of Madame la Marquise de Pompadour and in which I asked you to honor me with a word of reply. The question is whether I should present my memoir to the Director General, or whether Madame la Marquise will order the payment of it as she did for Mr. Boucher. [I will not speak to you of my pains nor of the nine months of work that I used to make five portraits in a row to succeed in executing the one that I had the honor to present to Madame la Marquise. However, as there is only one, it is also on it that I must stop, and I cannot do better than to rely on the generous kindness of Madame la Marquise. All that I could do to make him what he is, must be forgotten, unless it is out of friendship.