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Lot Essay
Like Watteau, Lancret was a varied artist whose oeuvre includes portraits, decorations, allegories, turqueries, theatrical and military subjects, even an occasional history painting, in addition to the many fêtes galantes on which his reputation was made. La Halte de Chasseurs ('The Hunters' Rest') is one of the finest and most important of a small but remarkable group of hunting scenes which number among Lancret's most satisfying creations. Georges Wildenstein catalogued fifteen hunting subjects in his monograph on the artist; of these, half are lost pictures unseen since the 18th century, three are oil sketches, and one - the famous Chasse au Tigre - was a specific royal commission, today in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens. Excepting the work last mentioned - an uncharacteristically tumultuous painting whose subject was dictated by the crown - Lancret's hunting pictures eschew the excitement and violence of the hunt itself in favor of the civilized conviviality of the picnic that followed (National Gallery of Art, Washington; Detroit Institute of Art; and Musée du Louvre, Paris), or the relaxing break taken during a hunt, as observed here.
La Halte de Chasseurs is set in a woodland clearing where two hunters stop to rest. On the right of the canvas, a standing hunter in livery and a tricorn hat - probably a valet de chasse - balances an upright musket on his raised knee and watches a leashed hound. To the left, a seated hunter, his musket leaning against the trunk of a tree, teases two eager dogs with a partridge caught earlier in the day; on the ground near his feet lie a dead hare and a brace of birds. It is a moment of playful respite, and the men are portrayed with exquisite care; every detail of their costume is meticulously rendered, no less than their sensitively conveyed expressions. When he chose to be, Lancret was one of the great portraitists of his generation, yet despite the realism with which the hunters' features are recorded, it would be a mistake to interpret this genre scene as a double portrait, or to regard its models as sitters.
There can be no doubt, nevertheless, that in painting the figure of the seated hunter, Lancret depended upon the precedent of a portrait that he knew well. The military hero turned journalist, Antoine de La Roque, had his leg shattered at the battle of Malplaquet (1709) and was painted by Watteau seated in a forest clearing, gesturing toward the upraised limb (this portrait is today in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum). Several recent scholars (M. Grasselli, A. Wintermute, M.T. Holmes) have suggested that Lancret collaborated with Watteau on the portrait, having been responsible for the nymphs and faun who cavort in the glade behind La Roque, and a trois crayons drawing by Lancret (in a private collection; see A. Wintermute, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750, New York, the Frick Collection, 1999, no. 59, pp. 208-9) not only copies the figure of La Roque, but carefully studies his two hands as well. In La Halte de Chasseurs, as in another hunt scene, La Fin de la Chasse (formerly in the Tabourier collection, Paris), Lancret only slightly readjusted La Roque's pose for his central figure.
Lancret's La Halte de Chasseurs is a gentle tribute to the bucolic pleasures of the modern hunt, but it is of a genre that enjoyed unprecedented popularity at the court of Louis XV, himself a passionate sportsman. Carle Vanloo, Jean-Franois de Troy, Charles Parrocel, Franois Boucher, even Jean-Baptiste Pater, all turned their hands to hunting scenes, and two other hunt paintings by Lancret have recently appeared. One of these is the beautiful Hunter and His Servant, in a private collection, first published several years ago by Mary Tavener Holmes (op. cit, 1991, no. 15, illustrated), and the other is another autograph version of the present painting. This superb variant, first published by Georges Wildenstein (Lancret, 1924, p. 99, no. 446, fig. 109), was in the celebrated Eugéne Kraemer collection, Paris (sale, Paris, 28 April 1913, lot 36), from which it was acquired by a South American collector who retained it in his family until it was sold at Christie's, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 59 ($816,500). It differs from the present painting in three significant ways: in it the valet de chasse holds two dogs on a lead rather than one; it is slightly larger (100 x 113cm.) with a more extensive landscape setting; and its canvas support was originally shaped to fit into curving, rococo boiserie paneling.
Lancret's paintings can be difficult to date. However, the effortless assurance of La Halte de Chasseurs, the amplitude of its figures and the subtle confidence with which they are integrated into a splendid, autumnal landscape, suggest that it is a mature work dating from 1740 or later. The proposed dating, near the end of the artist's life, is supported by Mary Tavener Holmes (who has studied the painting in person); Dr. Holmes notes that its style reveals 'Lancret in his most Grand Manner', displaying a monumentality characteristic of the works painted near the end of his life.
La Halte de Chasseurs is set in a woodland clearing where two hunters stop to rest. On the right of the canvas, a standing hunter in livery and a tricorn hat - probably a valet de chasse - balances an upright musket on his raised knee and watches a leashed hound. To the left, a seated hunter, his musket leaning against the trunk of a tree, teases two eager dogs with a partridge caught earlier in the day; on the ground near his feet lie a dead hare and a brace of birds. It is a moment of playful respite, and the men are portrayed with exquisite care; every detail of their costume is meticulously rendered, no less than their sensitively conveyed expressions. When he chose to be, Lancret was one of the great portraitists of his generation, yet despite the realism with which the hunters' features are recorded, it would be a mistake to interpret this genre scene as a double portrait, or to regard its models as sitters.
There can be no doubt, nevertheless, that in painting the figure of the seated hunter, Lancret depended upon the precedent of a portrait that he knew well. The military hero turned journalist, Antoine de La Roque, had his leg shattered at the battle of Malplaquet (1709) and was painted by Watteau seated in a forest clearing, gesturing toward the upraised limb (this portrait is today in the Tokyo Fuji Art Museum). Several recent scholars (M. Grasselli, A. Wintermute, M.T. Holmes) have suggested that Lancret collaborated with Watteau on the portrait, having been responsible for the nymphs and faun who cavort in the glade behind La Roque, and a trois crayons drawing by Lancret (in a private collection; see A. Wintermute, in the catalogue of the exhibition, Watteau and His World: French Drawing from 1700 to 1750, New York, the Frick Collection, 1999, no. 59, pp. 208-9) not only copies the figure of La Roque, but carefully studies his two hands as well. In La Halte de Chasseurs, as in another hunt scene, La Fin de la Chasse (formerly in the Tabourier collection, Paris), Lancret only slightly readjusted La Roque's pose for his central figure.
Lancret's La Halte de Chasseurs is a gentle tribute to the bucolic pleasures of the modern hunt, but it is of a genre that enjoyed unprecedented popularity at the court of Louis XV, himself a passionate sportsman. Carle Vanloo, Jean-Franois de Troy, Charles Parrocel, Franois Boucher, even Jean-Baptiste Pater, all turned their hands to hunting scenes, and two other hunt paintings by Lancret have recently appeared. One of these is the beautiful Hunter and His Servant, in a private collection, first published several years ago by Mary Tavener Holmes (op. cit, 1991, no. 15, illustrated), and the other is another autograph version of the present painting. This superb variant, first published by Georges Wildenstein (Lancret, 1924, p. 99, no. 446, fig. 109), was in the celebrated Eugéne Kraemer collection, Paris (sale, Paris, 28 April 1913, lot 36), from which it was acquired by a South American collector who retained it in his family until it was sold at Christie's, New York, 21 October 1997, lot 59 ($816,500). It differs from the present painting in three significant ways: in it the valet de chasse holds two dogs on a lead rather than one; it is slightly larger (100 x 113cm.) with a more extensive landscape setting; and its canvas support was originally shaped to fit into curving, rococo boiserie paneling.
Lancret's paintings can be difficult to date. However, the effortless assurance of La Halte de Chasseurs, the amplitude of its figures and the subtle confidence with which they are integrated into a splendid, autumnal landscape, suggest that it is a mature work dating from 1740 or later. The proposed dating, near the end of the artist's life, is supported by Mary Tavener Holmes (who has studied the painting in person); Dr. Holmes notes that its style reveals 'Lancret in his most Grand Manner', displaying a monumentality characteristic of the works painted near the end of his life.