Lot Essay
A preparatory study for the statue of Saint Sebastian in Santa Maria Assunto in Carignano, Genoa, F. Souchal, French Sculptors of the 17th and 18th Centuries: The Reign of Louis XIV, London, 1987, III, p. 193, fig. 14a. The statue had been commissioned on 8 March 1664 along with one of Saint Alessandro Sauli to adorn the high altar of the church. Both sculptures were completed four years later.
Drawings traditionally related to the sculpture are in the Musée Fabre at Montpellier, the Uffizi, the Louvre and the Musées des Beaux-Arts of Marseilles and Orléans have all been doubted, without explanation, in the latest Puget exhibition catalogue at Marseilles, K. Herding et al., loc. cit.. The present drawing was, however, published as by the artist by Mary Newcome Schleier at the Binghampton exhibition, loc. cit., and in Herding's book on Puget, loc. cit.
Although this is the only known drawing by the artist on blue paper, the soft handling of the black chalk is similar to the following lots.
Differences between the study and the sculpture are revealing: the Saint's back is more arched in the statue than in the drawing. The figure in the statue is reacting against pain in a desperate attempt to call up the power of his faith. While in the drawing he displays the muscular tension of a body struggling against his martyrdom. The expressive head leaning against his arm through the agony of his suffering is replaced in the sculpture, by a larger one with many more locks of hair, twisting toward the altar. The position of the left leg is equally altered. The folds of the drapery which, in the drawing, cover the left leg of the Saint, is in the sculpture a separate piece of material which is distinct from the loin cloth.
Above all, it is the relative proportions of the tree and the armour on one hand, and the size of the Saint's body on the other that differ. The body in the drawing is the essential center of attention, but in the sculpture it is the height of the tree which gives dramatic tension to the Saint's twisting body. The differences are such between the two that it would be difficult to think that the drawing could be a copy of the sculpture. The bold use of the black and white chalk over a very sketchy red chalk underdrawing suggests that the artist was, at an early stage of the commission, studying the effect of light on the figure, indicating cast shadows in the niche and the play of light on the Saint's musculature
Drawings traditionally related to the sculpture are in the Musée Fabre at Montpellier, the Uffizi, the Louvre and the Musées des Beaux-Arts of Marseilles and Orléans have all been doubted, without explanation, in the latest Puget exhibition catalogue at Marseilles, K. Herding et al., loc. cit.. The present drawing was, however, published as by the artist by Mary Newcome Schleier at the Binghampton exhibition, loc. cit., and in Herding's book on Puget, loc. cit.
Although this is the only known drawing by the artist on blue paper, the soft handling of the black chalk is similar to the following lots.
Differences between the study and the sculpture are revealing: the Saint's back is more arched in the statue than in the drawing. The figure in the statue is reacting against pain in a desperate attempt to call up the power of his faith. While in the drawing he displays the muscular tension of a body struggling against his martyrdom. The expressive head leaning against his arm through the agony of his suffering is replaced in the sculpture, by a larger one with many more locks of hair, twisting toward the altar. The position of the left leg is equally altered. The folds of the drapery which, in the drawing, cover the left leg of the Saint, is in the sculpture a separate piece of material which is distinct from the loin cloth.
Above all, it is the relative proportions of the tree and the armour on one hand, and the size of the Saint's body on the other that differ. The body in the drawing is the essential center of attention, but in the sculpture it is the height of the tree which gives dramatic tension to the Saint's twisting body. The differences are such between the two that it would be difficult to think that the drawing could be a copy of the sculpture. The bold use of the black and white chalk over a very sketchy red chalk underdrawing suggests that the artist was, at an early stage of the commission, studying the effect of light on the figure, indicating cast shadows in the niche and the play of light on the Saint's musculature