Nicolas-Guy Brenet* (1728-1792)

The Sleeping Diana; and Venus and Cupid

Details

Nicolas-Guy Brenet* (1728-1792)
Brenet, N.-G.
The Sleeping Diana; and Venus and Cupid
both signed and dated 'Brenet./1771'
oil on canvas--oval
21 x 17in. (53.3 x 44.5cm.)
A Pair (2)

Provenance

Possibly Dulac and Lachase sale, Paris, Nov. 30, 1778, lot 8.
L. Grimod de La Reynire (1734-1793), Paris; his sale, April 3, 1793, lot 177.

Literature

J.-B.-P. Lebrun, Catalogue des tableaux formant le Cabinet de M. de La Reymire, 1792, and Supplement, 1793, no. 177.
M. Sandoz, Nicolas-Guy Brenet (1728-1792), 1979, p. 96, nos. 61-2. J.-L. Bordeaux, 'The Rococo Age', in E.M. Zafran, The Rococo Age: French Masterpieces of the Eighteenth Century, 1983, p. 17, fig. 9 ('Sleeping Diana' only).

Exhibited

Paris, Salon, 1771, nos. 114-5.

Lot Essay

Although sculpturally modelled and academically proportioned in the fashion of the new neoclassical style, Brenet's mythological figures find their sources in works of the previous generation of rococo painters. The pose of the sleeping Diana was almost certainly adapted from the figure of a nereid in Noel-Nicolas Coypel's 1727 competition piece The Rape of Europa (Philadelphia Museum of Art), as was observed by Jean-Luc Bordeaux. The sleeping figure of Diana and the cold, nocturnal light that bathes her also recalls Brenet's sensual Sleeping Endymion of 1756 (Worcester Art Museum), one of the artist's earliest paintings.