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Lot Essay
Conceived as pendants, the present painting and the following lot are early works, datable to circa 1772/3 on account of the very close stylistic affinities with the slightly smaller canvas showing The Rehearsal of a Comedy in the Prado (exhibited Bilbao, Luis Paret y Alczar, 1991, pp. 166-9, no. 1, illustrated, where dated by Dr. Juan J. Luna to 1772-3) and the slightly larger panel depicting An Antique Shop in the Museo Lzaro Galdiano, Madrid (O. Delgado, Paret ye Alczar, 1957, pp. 241-2, no. 13, and figs. 20-1), which is signed and dated 1772.
The present pictures and that in the Prado include figures in costumes of the period of Philip III, reflecting a taste for historical dress which prefigures the troubadour style in France (for a Paret drawing of a couple in similar costume, see the 1991 exhibition catalogue, op. cit., pp. 324-5, no. 42, illustrated). The 'Age of the Enlightenment' also saw the birth of a vogue for depictions of regional types (see, for instance, the engravings after Paret of A Puerto Rican Slave and A Maid from Bilbao in ibid., pp. 438-9, no. 83, and pp. 442-3, no. 85). The present pair of paintings contrasts popular with aristocratic types and the following lot presumably originally bore an inscription like that on the present lot to emphasize this theme.
Both paintings were owned by the French general Maxime Weygand. Marshal Foch's close collaborator throughout the First World War, Weygand became Major General of the Allied Armies in March 1918. Recalled to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the Near East in 1939, he was subsequently Minister of National Defense in Ptain's cabinet (June-Sept. 1940) but spent the last years of the war in internment in Germany.
We are grateful to Dr. Juan J. Luna for confirming the attribution of the present picture and the following lot, and for his assistance in cataloguing them.
The present pictures and that in the Prado include figures in costumes of the period of Philip III, reflecting a taste for historical dress which prefigures the troubadour style in France (for a Paret drawing of a couple in similar costume, see the 1991 exhibition catalogue, op. cit., pp. 324-5, no. 42, illustrated). The 'Age of the Enlightenment' also saw the birth of a vogue for depictions of regional types (see, for instance, the engravings after Paret of A Puerto Rican Slave and A Maid from Bilbao in ibid., pp. 438-9, no. 83, and pp. 442-3, no. 85). The present pair of paintings contrasts popular with aristocratic types and the following lot presumably originally bore an inscription like that on the present lot to emphasize this theme.
Both paintings were owned by the French general Maxime Weygand. Marshal Foch's close collaborator throughout the First World War, Weygand became Major General of the Allied Armies in March 1918. Recalled to serve as Commander-in-Chief of the forces of the Near East in 1939, he was subsequently Minister of National Defense in Ptain's cabinet (June-Sept. 1940) but spent the last years of the war in internment in Germany.
We are grateful to Dr. Juan J. Luna for confirming the attribution of the present picture and the following lot, and for his assistance in cataloguing them.