Lot Essay
The present drawings are related to the masquerade La Caravane du Sultan à la Mecque staged by the pensionnaires of the Académie de France in Rome for the carnival of 1748.
The masquerade caused such a sensation in Rome that Pope Benedict XIV came to see it in person. Although Vien claimed that the idea of the masquerade came from him, it more probably sprang from Voltaire's scandalous dedication of his book Mahomet to Pope Benedict XIV and the exchange of letters between Voltaire and the Pope published in 1748.
In 1748 twelve pensionnaires were at the Académie and according to its director Jean-François de Troy: 'chacun en a fait des desseins à part qui peuvent leur servir d'études pour les habillemens des Orientaux, qui étoit conformes à toutes les qualités des personnages qu'ils représentoit avec une très exacte recherche', A. de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey, Correspondance des Directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome, Paris, 1910, X, 27 March 1748, p. 146.
The present drawings were part of an album of eighteen drawings, of similar dimensions and similarly inscribed, dispersed in 1961, of which one is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (J. Bean, 15th-18th Century French Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 322, illustrated) and another in the Louvre. The rest of the sheets is listed by Nathalie Volle and Pierre Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 42-3.
Although the series was attributed to Vien by Boucher, their handling is different from that of Vien's series of the masquerade at the Musée du Petit Palais, de Los Llanos, op. cit., nos. 11-33, illustrated. In the Barbault exhibition catalogue of 1974, an attribution to Guillaume Voiriot had been proposed for the series on the basis of a tradition in the family of the first known owner of the album, Jean-Baptiste Dumas (born 1800), whose ancestor was the architect Hazon. Voirot and Hazon both arrived in Rome in 1746 and remained close friends after their return to France. There are no extant drawings of Voirot's Roman period. Thomas Gaehtgens proposed an alternative attribution to the Directeur of the Académie Jean-François de Troy. Four further series of portraits for the masquerade are known, one of which is by Barbault.
Madame Hubert Prouté (N. Volle and P. Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 28) was the first to notice that the different versions of the same figure, such as the Grand Mufti in the present lot and that by Vien in the Musée du Petit Palais, were seen from a slightly different angle. She proposed that there were a number of draughtmen assembled in front of the model. This is confirmed by comparing the portrait of the Ambassadeur des Perses, the architect Jardin, in the present version and that in the Musée du Petit Palais, Gaehtgens and Lugand, op. cit., Dessins no. 36, illustrated. Although the sitter and the dress are exactly the same, the position is totally different: in the Vien drawing Jardin is leaning on his stick and looks to the right.
The sitter for the first drawing of the present lot is Nicolas-Henri Jardin (1720-1802), who resided at the Académie de France as an architect from 1744 to 1748, before he left to Denmark were he stayed twenty-five years. The Grand Mufti is Barthélemy-Michel Hazon (1722-1816), who received the second prize for architecture, and who stayed in Rome from 1746 to 1749.
The masquerade caused such a sensation in Rome that Pope Benedict XIV came to see it in person. Although Vien claimed that the idea of the masquerade came from him, it more probably sprang from Voltaire's scandalous dedication of his book Mahomet to Pope Benedict XIV and the exchange of letters between Voltaire and the Pope published in 1748.
In 1748 twelve pensionnaires were at the Académie and according to its director Jean-François de Troy: 'chacun en a fait des desseins à part qui peuvent leur servir d'études pour les habillemens des Orientaux, qui étoit conformes à toutes les qualités des personnages qu'ils représentoit avec une très exacte recherche', A. de Montaiglon and J. Guiffrey, Correspondance des Directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome, Paris, 1910, X, 27 March 1748, p. 146.
The present drawings were part of an album of eighteen drawings, of similar dimensions and similarly inscribed, dispersed in 1961, of which one is in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (J. Bean, 15th-18th Century French Drawings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1986, no. 322, illustrated) and another in the Louvre. The rest of the sheets is listed by Nathalie Volle and Pierre Rosenberg, op. cit., pp. 42-3.
Although the series was attributed to Vien by Boucher, their handling is different from that of Vien's series of the masquerade at the Musée du Petit Palais, de Los Llanos, op. cit., nos. 11-33, illustrated. In the Barbault exhibition catalogue of 1974, an attribution to Guillaume Voiriot had been proposed for the series on the basis of a tradition in the family of the first known owner of the album, Jean-Baptiste Dumas (born 1800), whose ancestor was the architect Hazon. Voirot and Hazon both arrived in Rome in 1746 and remained close friends after their return to France. There are no extant drawings of Voirot's Roman period. Thomas Gaehtgens proposed an alternative attribution to the Directeur of the Académie Jean-François de Troy. Four further series of portraits for the masquerade are known, one of which is by Barbault.
Madame Hubert Prouté (N. Volle and P. Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 28) was the first to notice that the different versions of the same figure, such as the Grand Mufti in the present lot and that by Vien in the Musée du Petit Palais, were seen from a slightly different angle. She proposed that there were a number of draughtmen assembled in front of the model. This is confirmed by comparing the portrait of the Ambassadeur des Perses, the architect Jardin, in the present version and that in the Musée du Petit Palais, Gaehtgens and Lugand, op. cit., Dessins no. 36, illustrated. Although the sitter and the dress are exactly the same, the position is totally different: in the Vien drawing Jardin is leaning on his stick and looks to the right.
The sitter for the first drawing of the present lot is Nicolas-Henri Jardin (1720-1802), who resided at the Académie de France as an architect from 1744 to 1748, before he left to Denmark were he stayed twenty-five years. The Grand Mufti is Barthélemy-Michel Hazon (1722-1816), who received the second prize for architecture, and who stayed in Rome from 1746 to 1749.