A performance at a theater

Details

CHARLES-NICOLAS COCHIN (PARIS 1715-1790)
A performance at a theater
black chalk, brush and gray ink, watercolor, pen and black ink framing lines, watermark ‘B*C*RICHARD’ in a cartouche with a crescent below
13 1⁄4 x 18 1⁄4 in. (33.7 x 46.4 cm)

Provenance

Félix Doisteau; Paris, 9-11 June 1909, lot 125 (as Gabriel de Saint-Aubin).
Georges Dormeuil (1856-1939), Paris (L. 1146a); by descent.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, London, 3 July 2013, lot 56 (as attributed to Moreau le Jeune).
with The Chinese Porcelain Company, New York.

Literature

Société de reproduction des dessins de maîtres, Paris, 1911, pl. 26 (text by É. Dacier).
É. Dacier, Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. Peintre, dessinateur et graveur (1724-1780), Paris and Brussels, 1931, II, no. 495, ill. (as probably by Cochin).
É. Launay, Les Frères Goncourt collectionneurs de dessins, Paris, 1991, p. 260, under no. 54.

Exhibited

Paris, Galerie Charpentier, Exposition des Saint-Aubin, 1925, no. 40 (as Gabriel de Saint-Aubin).
London, Royal Academy of Arts, French Art, 1200-1900, 1932, no. 796 (as Gabriel de Saint-Aubin).

Conditions of sale

Brought to you by

Elizabeth Seigel Vice President, Specialist, Head of Private and Iconic Collections

eseigel@christies.com +1 212 484 4812

Lot Essay

Émile Dacier, who first publised this drawing as a particularly important work by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (op. cit., 1911), later conceded it must be the work of Cochin (op. cit., 1931, II, p. 83). He notes a drawing by Cochin representing the same, probably imaginary theater was formerly in the collection of the Goncourt brothers (Launay, op. cit., no. 54, ill.).

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