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Lot Essay
This and the following drawing by Jean-Baptiste Oudry illustrate scenes of Jean de la Fontaine’s fable Belphégor, from the twelfth and last book of his Fables choisies, first published between 1668 and 1694 and still today among the most widely admired poems in French literature. Throughout his career, Oudry produced paintings which took inspiration from one or another of the fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes from 1725, formerly in the Staatliches Museum Schwerin, the Lion and the Fly from 1732 at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm (inv. NM 862), a pair of paintings made in 1747 for the decoration of the Dauphin’s appartement in Versailles from 1747 (inv. MV 6212, MV 6213), and numerous other canvases (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, I, nos. P51-P85, II, figs. 121, 177, 178, 200, 223, 424; and H. Opperman, J.-B. Oudry, 1686-1755, exhib. cat., Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, 1982-1983, no. 86, ill.). It was, however, in an extended series of 275 drawings illustrating all of the fables that he measured himself fully with La Fontaine, proving himself in the process to be as gifted a storyteller, a poet and a wit as was his literary predecessor. Bound in two albums, the drawings were kept together until 1973, when they were sold at auction (see Provenance). While the first album was kept together and was recently sold again at Christie’s, New York, 25 January 2023, lot 46, the second album was dismembered. The drawings from the latter group, including the two sheets offered here, found their way to numerous public and private collections in Europe and America (see, for example, R.J.A. te Rijdt, De Watteau à Ingres. Dessins français du XVIIIe siècle du Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, exhib. cat., Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum, and Paris, Institut Néerlandais, 2002-2003, nos. 20-21, ill.; M.M. Grasselli, Renaissance to Revolution. French Drawings from the National Gallery of Art, 1500-1800, exhib. cat., Washington, National Gallery of Art, 2009-2010, no. 48, ill.; A.L. Clark, Jr., French Drawings from the Age of Claude, Poussin, Watteau, and Fragonard. Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 2022, no. 52, ill.).
As recounted by Oudry’s first biographer, the Abbé Louis Gougenot, in a manuscript from 1761, written shortly after the artist’s death (but published only in 1854), the drawings were ‘only the fruit of the evenings of two winters’ (op. cit., p. 380). In fact, as the dates on the drawings indicate, they were made over a period of five years, between 1729 and 1734, but it is indeed possible that Oudry worked on them at night, while during the day he created his paintings, as well as the designs for tapestries which preoccupied him for much of the 1730s (Opperman, op. cit., 1982-1983, pp. 126-156). The dates also show that he worked through the 243 fables in the order intended by La Fontaine. The idiosyncratic technique of the drawings – brush and grey or sometimes brown ink, skilfully heightened with white bodycolor on blue paper – lends the scenes an almost nocturnal feeling, even if most are actually set during the day. A trompe-l’œil frame, consisting of black pen lines and blue wash on the drawings’ primary support, heightens this impression, and makes the drawings unique and immediately recognizable among Oudry’s substantial output as a draftsman, and among French drawings of the period in general.
It seems Oudry did not intend his drawings for any other purpose than his own enjoyment; the preface of the edition discussed below specifies that he ‘made them for his own pleasure, and in those moments of joy and fancy when an artist vividly captures the ideas inspired by his subject, and when he gives free rein to his genius’ (Fables choisies, mises en vers, I, Paris, 1755, p. iv). But the idea to make them into prints to illustrate La Fontaine’s text must been an obvious one. Probably around 1750, some twenty years after Oudry started working on his drawings, the printmaker Gabriel Huquier brought out a first set of twelve prints under the title Livre d’animaux (Opperman, op. cit., 1982-1983, p. 158), and shortly afterwards the Paris publisher Jean-Louis Regnard de Montenault acquired the series, completed in 1752 with a frontispiece which opens the first volume. However, the painterly quality of Oudry’s style made the drawings less suited to serve as direct models for the engravers, and Montenault commissioned Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger (1715-1790) to copy the compositions in a more linear style in graphite (for two examples in the collection of Jean Bonna, see N. Strasser, Dessins français du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Geneva, 2016, no. 64, ill.). Associating himself with more than forty other printmakers (among them Louis-Simon Lempereur, who engraved the drawings under discussion), Cochin produced the elegant engravings to which the edition brought out by Montenault still owes its reputation as one of the most magnificently illustrated books of the eighteenth century. The first three volumes appeared speedily in 1755 and 1756, but the costs of the undertaking were so high that the fourth and final volume, of which the title page is dated 1759, was published probably only in 1760, thanks to a substantial grant from King Louis XV himself (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, p. 684). It is ironic that the compositions, which played an important role in establishing Oudry’s reputation (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, pp. 157-158), were best known to his modern admirers from the prints than from the original drawings before the sale of the two albums in 1973.
What the prints fail to capture, however, is the spirited execution of Oudry’s originals – the agility of the brushwork, the effective use of darker accents, and the subtlety and playfulness of the white heightening – of which the two drawings offered here are attractive examples. The two scenes show the damned soul Belphégor, who, in the guise of Roderic, is sent by the Devil to find out the flaws of marriage. In lot 64 is shown his encounter with Honnesta, a beautiful and rich yet quarrelsome woman. In lot 65, Roderic meets with the farmer Matheo, with whom he sets up an elaborate scheme, which enriches the farmer and allows Roderic to hide from Honnesta. It ends, however, with Honnesta claiming Roderic back for herself, and Roderic, or Belphégor, fleeing back to Hell. Oudry made a total of four illustrations for the fable; the first is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. 2002.52.4), while the fourth was acquired in 2020 by the Musée Jean de La Fontaine in Château-Thierry (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, nos. D491, D494).
As recounted by Oudry’s first biographer, the Abbé Louis Gougenot, in a manuscript from 1761, written shortly after the artist’s death (but published only in 1854), the drawings were ‘only the fruit of the evenings of two winters’ (op. cit., p. 380). In fact, as the dates on the drawings indicate, they were made over a period of five years, between 1729 and 1734, but it is indeed possible that Oudry worked on them at night, while during the day he created his paintings, as well as the designs for tapestries which preoccupied him for much of the 1730s (Opperman, op. cit., 1982-1983, pp. 126-156). The dates also show that he worked through the 243 fables in the order intended by La Fontaine. The idiosyncratic technique of the drawings – brush and grey or sometimes brown ink, skilfully heightened with white bodycolor on blue paper – lends the scenes an almost nocturnal feeling, even if most are actually set during the day. A trompe-l’œil frame, consisting of black pen lines and blue wash on the drawings’ primary support, heightens this impression, and makes the drawings unique and immediately recognizable among Oudry’s substantial output as a draftsman, and among French drawings of the period in general.
It seems Oudry did not intend his drawings for any other purpose than his own enjoyment; the preface of the edition discussed below specifies that he ‘made them for his own pleasure, and in those moments of joy and fancy when an artist vividly captures the ideas inspired by his subject, and when he gives free rein to his genius’ (Fables choisies, mises en vers, I, Paris, 1755, p. iv). But the idea to make them into prints to illustrate La Fontaine’s text must been an obvious one. Probably around 1750, some twenty years after Oudry started working on his drawings, the printmaker Gabriel Huquier brought out a first set of twelve prints under the title Livre d’animaux (Opperman, op. cit., 1982-1983, p. 158), and shortly afterwards the Paris publisher Jean-Louis Regnard de Montenault acquired the series, completed in 1752 with a frontispiece which opens the first volume. However, the painterly quality of Oudry’s style made the drawings less suited to serve as direct models for the engravers, and Montenault commissioned Charles-Nicolas Cochin the Younger (1715-1790) to copy the compositions in a more linear style in graphite (for two examples in the collection of Jean Bonna, see N. Strasser, Dessins français du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Geneva, 2016, no. 64, ill.). Associating himself with more than forty other printmakers (among them Louis-Simon Lempereur, who engraved the drawings under discussion), Cochin produced the elegant engravings to which the edition brought out by Montenault still owes its reputation as one of the most magnificently illustrated books of the eighteenth century. The first three volumes appeared speedily in 1755 and 1756, but the costs of the undertaking were so high that the fourth and final volume, of which the title page is dated 1759, was published probably only in 1760, thanks to a substantial grant from King Louis XV himself (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, p. 684). It is ironic that the compositions, which played an important role in establishing Oudry’s reputation (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, pp. 157-158), were best known to his modern admirers from the prints than from the original drawings before the sale of the two albums in 1973.
What the prints fail to capture, however, is the spirited execution of Oudry’s originals – the agility of the brushwork, the effective use of darker accents, and the subtlety and playfulness of the white heightening – of which the two drawings offered here are attractive examples. The two scenes show the damned soul Belphégor, who, in the guise of Roderic, is sent by the Devil to find out the flaws of marriage. In lot 64 is shown his encounter with Honnesta, a beautiful and rich yet quarrelsome woman. In lot 65, Roderic meets with the farmer Matheo, with whom he sets up an elaborate scheme, which enriches the farmer and allows Roderic to hide from Honnesta. It ends, however, with Honnesta claiming Roderic back for herself, and Roderic, or Belphégor, fleeing back to Hell. Oudry made a total of four illustrations for the fable; the first is now at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (inv. 2002.52.4), while the fourth was acquired in 2020 by the Musée Jean de La Fontaine in Château-Thierry (Opperman, op. cit., 1977, II, nos. D491, D494).