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Lot Essay
The drawing represents the inauguration on January 31, 1789, of the pulpit in the great nave of the Church of Saint-Sulpice in Paris by the priest Antoine-Xavier Mayneaud de Pancemont (1756-1807). The pulpit, located between two pillars of the south side of the nave, has remained to this day virtually unchanged.
Construction of Saint-Sulpice had begun as early as 1646 and it was still not completed when the French Revolution started in 1789. Its fate was that of collective creations that lack unity because they betray the diversity of architects and artists and the changing tastes of generations. In the course of more than a century a large number of architects and maîtres d’œuvre succeeded each other on the site, among them Louis Le Vau, Gilles-Marie Oppenord, Giovanni Nicola Servandoni, Jean-François Thérèse Chalgrin and Charles de Wailly. The latter’s main participation dates from 1777 when he created in the apse an elaborate new decoration of the Chapel of the Virgin housing Jean-Baptiste Pigalle’s famous statue of the Virgin and Child which had been completed in 1754.
In the late 1770s or early 1780s, church authorities decided to replace the rather pedestrian pulpit overlooking the great nave with a more elaborate one that was to be paid for by one of its distinguished parishioners, the Duc D’Aiguillon, Prime Minister of France at the end of the reign of King Louis XV. A competition was organized among the most active architects of the time. It was won by Charles de Wailly who worked out the major elements of the ensemble in a series of preparatory drawings. Some of these are today in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg and the Archives nationales in Paris (M. Gallet and D. Rabreau, ‘La chaire de Saint-Sulpice. Sa création par Charles de Wailly et l’exemple du Bernin en France à la fin de l’Ancien Régime’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France, XCVIII, 1971, figs. 2-7).
The conception, design and actual realization of the pulpit was quite complex and innovative. Rather than attaching the pulpit to a pillar in of the nave, de Wailly, without doubt influenced by Bernini’s Cathedra Petri in the Vatican which he copied in at least two drawings while he was in Rome (idem, figs. 1 and 8), elected to suspend it in an archway between two double-ramped flights of marble stairs of fifteen steps each. The handrails are supported by carved and gilded wood balusters. Immediately to the rear of the pulpit is the side aisle of the nave. The walls on either side of the pulpit are of various colored and shaped slabs of marble quarried in Languedoc. The round shell and conical top of the pulpit is in oak. They are painted blue and decorated with gilded corbels, friezes and other carved or molded neoclassical ornaments that may have been designed by De Wailly’s friend and sometimes collaborator Augustin Pajou (1730-1809).
The sculptural decoration of the pulpit includes carved and gilded linden wood statues of the three theological virtues of the church of Rome, Faith, Hope and Charity. To the right and left of the pulpit sit female personifications of Faith (with chalice in hand) and Hope (with an anchor at her side) which are the works of the sculptor Louis-François Guédon. At the top of the pulpit’s roof is affixed an allegory of Charity – a woman caring for needy children, one of whom she nurtures at her breast – by Jacques-Edmé Dumont (1761-1844), who was also the author of the low-relief gilt bronze plaques depicting winged creatures symbolizing the evangelists that decorate the bases – Matthew (a cherub), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).
The pulpit, which is today considered to be one of Saint-Sulpice's masterpieces, was not well received by all the contemporary commentators (fig. 1). Quatremère de Quincy described it as a ‘machine à prêcher’ and an anonymous writer called it a ‘production ridicule, qui ressemble à la moitié d’un tonneau dans lequel on arrive par deux escaliers dignes de conduire à la chambre de Rose et derrière lesquels on a étendu des draps de lit’ (‘a ridiculous production, resembling half a barrel, which is accessed via two staircases worthy of leading to Rose's bedroom, behind which bed sheets have been hung’).
Charles de Wailly executed at least three highly finished drawings in watercolor after his pulpit. The present one, which reappeared in an auction in France in 2003, is signed and dated 1789 and is dedicated to the Duc d’Aiguillon. It is, as shown by the fact that it was made on four sheets of paper, the prototype and it was exhibited at the Salon in 1789 (‘l’un est exécuté & appartient à M. le Duc d’Aiguillon’). Compared to the two other drawings, the present one shows a little more of the ogival roof of the church at the back and it also represents the two columns of the nave which are absent from the two other drawings. A second drawing is now in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York (G. Gaillard, ‘Un dessin de Charles Dewailly pour la chaire de Saint-Sulpice’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art français, 1957, pp. 55-59). It measures 57.6 x 47.5 cm. It is also signed and dated 1789 and was very probably exhibited at the 1789 Salon. In this drawing the Allegory of Charity by Dumont is on the right of the round window of the church while it is represented to the left of it in the present drawing. It also differs from the latter in the position of the priest and of the figures attending the ceremony. Finally, a drawing now in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (M. Gallet, ‘Un dessin de Ch. De Wailly pour la chaire de Saint-Sulpice’, Bulletin du Musée Carnavalet. Nouvelles acquisitions, June 1972, p. 26) measures 57.5 x 48 cm. It still belonged to the artist at his death. It is mainly a repetition (for example the figures are in the same positions) of the drawing in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, although the priest is copied from the present drawing.
Fig. 1. Charles de Wailly, Pulpit. Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris.
Construction of Saint-Sulpice had begun as early as 1646 and it was still not completed when the French Revolution started in 1789. Its fate was that of collective creations that lack unity because they betray the diversity of architects and artists and the changing tastes of generations. In the course of more than a century a large number of architects and maîtres d’œuvre succeeded each other on the site, among them Louis Le Vau, Gilles-Marie Oppenord, Giovanni Nicola Servandoni, Jean-François Thérèse Chalgrin and Charles de Wailly. The latter’s main participation dates from 1777 when he created in the apse an elaborate new decoration of the Chapel of the Virgin housing Jean-Baptiste Pigalle’s famous statue of the Virgin and Child which had been completed in 1754.
In the late 1770s or early 1780s, church authorities decided to replace the rather pedestrian pulpit overlooking the great nave with a more elaborate one that was to be paid for by one of its distinguished parishioners, the Duc D’Aiguillon, Prime Minister of France at the end of the reign of King Louis XV. A competition was organized among the most active architects of the time. It was won by Charles de Wailly who worked out the major elements of the ensemble in a series of preparatory drawings. Some of these are today in the Hermitage, Saint Petersburg and the Archives nationales in Paris (M. Gallet and D. Rabreau, ‘La chaire de Saint-Sulpice. Sa création par Charles de Wailly et l’exemple du Bernin en France à la fin de l’Ancien Régime’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de Paris et de l’Île-de-France, XCVIII, 1971, figs. 2-7).
The conception, design and actual realization of the pulpit was quite complex and innovative. Rather than attaching the pulpit to a pillar in of the nave, de Wailly, without doubt influenced by Bernini’s Cathedra Petri in the Vatican which he copied in at least two drawings while he was in Rome (idem, figs. 1 and 8), elected to suspend it in an archway between two double-ramped flights of marble stairs of fifteen steps each. The handrails are supported by carved and gilded wood balusters. Immediately to the rear of the pulpit is the side aisle of the nave. The walls on either side of the pulpit are of various colored and shaped slabs of marble quarried in Languedoc. The round shell and conical top of the pulpit is in oak. They are painted blue and decorated with gilded corbels, friezes and other carved or molded neoclassical ornaments that may have been designed by De Wailly’s friend and sometimes collaborator Augustin Pajou (1730-1809).
The sculptural decoration of the pulpit includes carved and gilded linden wood statues of the three theological virtues of the church of Rome, Faith, Hope and Charity. To the right and left of the pulpit sit female personifications of Faith (with chalice in hand) and Hope (with an anchor at her side) which are the works of the sculptor Louis-François Guédon. At the top of the pulpit’s roof is affixed an allegory of Charity – a woman caring for needy children, one of whom she nurtures at her breast – by Jacques-Edmé Dumont (1761-1844), who was also the author of the low-relief gilt bronze plaques depicting winged creatures symbolizing the evangelists that decorate the bases – Matthew (a cherub), Mark (a lion), Luke (an ox) and John (an eagle).
The pulpit, which is today considered to be one of Saint-Sulpice's masterpieces, was not well received by all the contemporary commentators (fig. 1). Quatremère de Quincy described it as a ‘machine à prêcher’ and an anonymous writer called it a ‘production ridicule, qui ressemble à la moitié d’un tonneau dans lequel on arrive par deux escaliers dignes de conduire à la chambre de Rose et derrière lesquels on a étendu des draps de lit’ (‘a ridiculous production, resembling half a barrel, which is accessed via two staircases worthy of leading to Rose's bedroom, behind which bed sheets have been hung’).
Charles de Wailly executed at least three highly finished drawings in watercolor after his pulpit. The present one, which reappeared in an auction in France in 2003, is signed and dated 1789 and is dedicated to the Duc d’Aiguillon. It is, as shown by the fact that it was made on four sheets of paper, the prototype and it was exhibited at the Salon in 1789 (‘l’un est exécuté & appartient à M. le Duc d’Aiguillon’). Compared to the two other drawings, the present one shows a little more of the ogival roof of the church at the back and it also represents the two columns of the nave which are absent from the two other drawings. A second drawing is now in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, New York (G. Gaillard, ‘Un dessin de Charles Dewailly pour la chaire de Saint-Sulpice’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art français, 1957, pp. 55-59). It measures 57.6 x 47.5 cm. It is also signed and dated 1789 and was very probably exhibited at the 1789 Salon. In this drawing the Allegory of Charity by Dumont is on the right of the round window of the church while it is represented to the left of it in the present drawing. It also differs from the latter in the position of the priest and of the figures attending the ceremony. Finally, a drawing now in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris (M. Gallet, ‘Un dessin de Ch. De Wailly pour la chaire de Saint-Sulpice’, Bulletin du Musée Carnavalet. Nouvelles acquisitions, June 1972, p. 26) measures 57.5 x 48 cm. It still belonged to the artist at his death. It is mainly a repetition (for example the figures are in the same positions) of the drawing in the Cooper Hewitt Museum, although the priest is copied from the present drawing.
Fig. 1. Charles de Wailly, Pulpit. Church of Saint-Sulpice, Paris.