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Lot Essay
This is from a series of drawings related to tapestry designs based on Ovid's Metamorphoses executed by Oudry for the Manufacture de Beauvais between 1732 and 1734. The Lamponi sale in 1902 included fifteen drawings illustrating Ovid's poems and a few more are illustrated in H.N. Opperman, J.-B. Oudry, exhib. cat., Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 1982, no. 70-1, figs. 70a, 71a-c. The complete series was woven in 1734. The cartoons were transferred to Aubusson in 1761 and a few more subjects woven. All the cartoons and tapestries are now lost.
Oudry drew the story of Glaucus with numerous differences in drawings at Rouen and Oxford. The Rouen drawing is oblong in format and only shows the fish, while the Oxford one is only a variant of the present drawing, with the eagle on the other side, Glaucus further back and the birds absent, H.N. Opperman, op. cit., 1982, no. 70 and fig. 70a. In the three drawings Oudry included an eagle pierced with an arrow, probably an allusion to Periclymenus. Neptune gave Periclymenus the power to transform himself at will. Wanting to escape from Hercules, Periclymenus changed into an eagle, but was killed by an arrow. The story has little in common with Glaucus: Glaucus was a fisherman who made a big catch of fish on a strange shore. He saw the fish escaping and thinking that the plants on the shore were magical he ate some and was transformed into a sea-monster.
Oudry drew the story of Glaucus with numerous differences in drawings at Rouen and Oxford. The Rouen drawing is oblong in format and only shows the fish, while the Oxford one is only a variant of the present drawing, with the eagle on the other side, Glaucus further back and the birds absent, H.N. Opperman, op. cit., 1982, no. 70 and fig. 70a. In the three drawings Oudry included an eagle pierced with an arrow, probably an allusion to Periclymenus. Neptune gave Periclymenus the power to transform himself at will. Wanting to escape from Hercules, Periclymenus changed into an eagle, but was killed by an arrow. The story has little in common with Glaucus: Glaucus was a fisherman who made a big catch of fish on a strange shore. He saw the fish escaping and thinking that the plants on the shore were magical he ate some and was transformed into a sea-monster.