Although the tightness of the composition and the use of color washes in the present sheet are unusual for Oppenord, there are a few similar drawings in his output such as the Design for the Wrought-Iron Entrance Grille of a Chapel for the Royal Abbey of Jouarre illustrated in M.L. Myers, French Architectural and Ornament Drawings of the Eighteenth Century, exhib. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1991, no. 88.
The presence of the royal coat-of-arms in the present drawing can be explained by the fact that, less than ten years after his return from Rome, Oppenord succeeded his master Jules-Hardouin Mansart as Premier Architecte du Duc d'Orléans in 1708. He was placed in charge of the remodelling of the Palais-Royal. At the death of King Louis XIV, in 1715, the Duc d'Orléans became Regent and the Palais-Royal became the most important artistic center in France. Oppenord redesigned the Grands Appartements which included his masterpiece of 1720 the Salon à l'Italienne. Most of these Appartements were unfortunately destroyed in 1784 when the gardens were re-developed.
We are grateful to Dr. Elaine Dee for confirming the attribution and providing the information for cataloguing this drawing.
A similar design for a stained-glass window of the same shape displaying the French royal coat-of-arms in the form of a cartouche: stylistically very close to a drawing by Claude III Audran in the Nationamuseum, Stockholm. Payment to that artist 'des peintures sur verre qu'il a fournies pour la chapelle de Versailles' is recorded on 19 June 1707, G. Walton, Versailles à Stockholm, exhib. cat., Uddevalla, 1985, p. 92, D12, illustrated. The present drawing mau be related to the same project