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Lot Essay
The drawing is one of the four compositional studies for the painting executed by Natoire in 1757 for the Fermier-général Lallemand de Betz and now in a private collection (P. Rosenberg, 'A propos de Natoire', Dessins français aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles , Paris, 1999, pp. 346-350, fig. 4). The painting, together with one of Venus and Adonis, is mentioned in a letter from the artist to the Surintendant Marigny on 1 June 1757: 'Dans l'intervalle de ce tableau et de celuy de la suite qui ait [sic] déjeà en chantier, je fini deux petits tableaux que je dois depuis longtemps à M. Lallement de Best. Je seray fort flatté, M., que vous y puissiés donner un coup d'oeil dès que je l'aurès envoyé' (A. de Montaiglon et J. Guiffrey, 'Correspondance des directeurs de l'Académie de France à Rome', Société de l'Histoire de l'art français, Paris, 1901, XI, p. 187).
Jean-François Méjanès, in the catalogue of the Horvitz Collection, reproduces three other compositions for that painting: in the Horvitz Collection, in Montpellier and in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, as well as a drawing for Orpheus in the Louvre (Mastery and Elegance, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums and elsewhere, 1998, no. 57, figs. 2-3, 1). Pierre Rosenberg (in the Horvitz symposium) added a study for one of the nymphs (op. cit., fig. 3).
Jean-François Méjanès, in the catalogue of the Horvitz Collection, reproduces three other compositions for that painting: in the Horvitz Collection, in Montpellier and in the Metropolitan Museum, New York, as well as a drawing for Orpheus in the Louvre (Mastery and Elegance, exhib. cat., Cambridge, Harvard University Art Museums and elsewhere, 1998, no. 57, figs. 2-3, 1). Pierre Rosenberg (in the Horvitz symposium) added a study for one of the nymphs (op. cit., fig. 3).