Details
A FRENCH MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY
CIRCA 1746, BEAUVAIS, AFTER FRANCOIS BOUCHER, BY NICOLAS BESNIER AND JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY
En suite with the following lot, woven in silk and wool, depicting Psyche and the Basketmaker from The Story of Psyche, with Psyche being helped by an elder, with two ladies seated to the right, all before an open landscape with old trees, within a simulated giltwood frame-border topped by a coat-of-arms, within a blue outer guard border with areas of replacements and with signature 'BE..ER.ETOVDRY', the main field with signature 'f.Boucher' to the lower left corner, the reverse with remains of old lining woven to new lining inscribed in black ink 'A to 15½. L go 14½.', limited areas of re-weaving
11 ft. 11 in. (363 cm.) high; 9 ft. 8 in. (295 cm.) wide
Provenance
Commissioned by Principe di Campofiorito, Luigi Riggio Saladino Branciforti-Colonna, ambassadeur extraordinaire du Roi d'Espagne at the court of Versailles, in 1746.
Ernest Cronier, sold Galerie Georges Petit, 4 - 5 December 1905, lot 165.
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, Monaco, 22 - 23 June 1991, lot 563.
Literature
A. Alexandre, 'La Collection Cronier', Les Arts, November 1905, pp. 20 - 22.
H. Macfall, Boucher: The Man, His Times, His Art and His Significance, London, 1908, p. 136.
J. Badin, La Manufacture de Tapisseries de Beauvais, Paris, 1909, p. 60.
H. Göbel, Die Wandteppiche und ihre Manufakturen in Frankreich Italien Spanien und Portugal, Leipzig, 1928, p. 226.
A. Ananoff, M.B. Wildenstein, François Boucher, Geneva, 1976, vol. I, pp. 308 and 311.
K. Hiesinger, 'The Sources of François Boucher's Psyche Tapestries', Philadelphia Museum of Art Bulletin, November 1976, vol. 72, p. 7.
N. Forti Grazzini, Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale: Gli Arazzi, Milan, 1994, vol. II, pp. 492, 494 and 508.
A. Darr and T. Albainy, Woven Splendor, Five Centuries of European Tapestry in the Detroit Institute of Arts, Exhibition Catalogue, Detroit, 1996, p. 62.
H.H. Hawley, Tapestries in The Dodge Collection of Eighteenth-Century French and English Art in The Detroit Institute of Arts, New York, 1996, p. 146.
C. Bremer-David, French Tapestries and Textiles in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 1997, pp. 115 - 119.
G. Bertini and N. Forti Grazzini, Gli Arazzi dei Farnese e dei Borbone, exhibition catalogue, Milan, 1998, p. 64.