Eustache Le Sueur (Paris 1616-1655)
PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN
Eustache Le Sueur (Paris 1616-1655)

A putto holding a palm frond

Details
Eustache Le Sueur (Paris 1616-1655)
A putto holding a palm frond
black and white chalk on dark brown paper
4 7/8 x 7½ in. (12.4 x 19.3 cm.)
Provenance
Possibly Claude Potier; Paris, 28 February 1757, lot 108 ('Un Ange de la Gloire qui se voit dans le même tableau').
Anthony Blunt, London.
Anonymous sale, Sotheby's, New York, 28 January 1998, lot 168, where acquired by the present owner.
Literature
A. Mérot, Eustache Le Sueur 1616-1655, Paris, 1987, p. 290, D.274, fig. 355.

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Lot Essay

A study for the putto in the upper left section of the Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence, executed around 1652 for the church of Saint Germain l'Auxerrois and today in the collection of the Duke of Buccleuch (Mérot, op. cit., no. 158, fig. 354).
The present drawing possibly belonged to Claude Potier, 'avocat au parlement', who had amassed the most important collection of drawings by Le Sueur in the 18th century. It counted no less than 144 sheets by the artists. More recently, the drawing was part of the collection formed by Anthony Blunt (1907-1983), director of the Courtauld Institute and Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, great specialist of French 17th century art and exposed at the end of his life as a spy working from the 30's to the early 50's for the Soviet Union.

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