拍品專文
The present sheet is a preparatory study for two of the reliefs decorating the balustrade of the boxes of the Opera House at Versailles. The need for a proper opera house within the palace had long been felt. The funds however had run short when, in 1753, the marquis de Marigny commissioned a design from Gabriel. In 1767, at the time when France initiated negotiations with Austria for a wedding between the dauphin and the archduchess Marie-Antoinette, work really started. The pressure of time explains why the entire structure was built in wood, with intricate machinery which allowed the room to be transformed overnight from an opera house into a concert hall and banqueting hall. The opera house was completed under the supervision of the architect Potin and inaugurated on 1 May 1770 on the occasion of the Royal wedding.
Pajou was commissioned to design all the decorations, not only in the theater but also in the entrance hall and adjacent rooms. Instead of the customary program of antique ornament Pajou provided an animated sequence of reliefs, figures and medallions. On the first row of boxes a scheme of reliefs representing twelve of the Gods of Olympus, alternating with medallions with profiles of the Muses and Graces was chosen. The present drawing relates to two of the series of thirteen bas reliefs decorating the second row of boxes, on the étage noble, which illustrated allegorical episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses enacted by putti. These were separated by sculptural reliefs of the signs of the zodiac, P. Verlet, Le Château de Versailles, Paris, 1985, pp. 375-84.
The magnitude of the project is reflected in both the working practice of the artist and his studio, and in the price Pajou asked. The artist demanded 145,000 livres, which, compared with the 4000 livres that the artist got for the bust of the Comtesse du Barry, is enormous. The artist however was never paid the full amount due to the shortage of royal funds. The volume of work forced Pajou to build a tent in the courtyard of the Louvre next to his workshop, where models were made after drawings, such as the present one, and casts made of the models before the carvings themselves were executed
Pajou was commissioned to design all the decorations, not only in the theater but also in the entrance hall and adjacent rooms. Instead of the customary program of antique ornament Pajou provided an animated sequence of reliefs, figures and medallions. On the first row of boxes a scheme of reliefs representing twelve of the Gods of Olympus, alternating with medallions with profiles of the Muses and Graces was chosen. The present drawing relates to two of the series of thirteen bas reliefs decorating the second row of boxes, on the étage noble, which illustrated allegorical episodes from Ovid's Metamorphoses enacted by putti. These were separated by sculptural reliefs of the signs of the zodiac, P. Verlet, Le Château de Versailles, Paris, 1985, pp. 375-84.
The magnitude of the project is reflected in both the working practice of the artist and his studio, and in the price Pajou asked. The artist demanded 145,000 livres, which, compared with the 4000 livres that the artist got for the bust of the Comtesse du Barry, is enormous. The artist however was never paid the full amount due to the shortage of royal funds. The volume of work forced Pajou to build a tent in the courtyard of the Louvre next to his workshop, where models were made after drawings, such as the present one, and casts made of the models before the carvings themselves were executed