Louis Michel Van Loo (Toulon 1707-1771 Paris)

'La Sculpture'

细节

Louis Michel Van Loo (Toulon 1707-1771 Paris)
'La Sculpture'
oil on canvas, oval
36 x 28¾in. (91.8 x 72.7 cm.)

来源

L. M. Van Loo, listed in the inventory of his estate with a pendant 'La Peinture', both oval (see literature below).
Charles-Amédée Van Loo, listed in the inventory of his estate, 18 nivôse 1795.
with Galerie Cailleux, Paris (Autour du Néoclassicisme, March 1973, no. 49, illustrated).

出版

Inventory of the artist's estate, Archives Nationales, Minutier Central, LVI, 166, Picquais.
E. Bellier de la Chavignerie and L. Auvray, Dictionnaire Général des Artistes de l'Ecole française, Paris, 1882, reprinted 1997, II, p. 625.
Diderot, Salons, reedited by J. Seznac and J. Adhémar, Paris, 1960, III, Salon of 1767, pp. 17 and 65-6.
E. M. Bukdhal, Diderot critique d'art, Copenhagen, 1980, I, p. 126, fig. 49.
C. Rolland, Louis-Michel Van Loo (1707-1771): member of a dynasty of painters, unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of California at Santa Barbara, 1994, pp. 278-80, pl. 133.

展览

(Possibly) Paris, Salon, 1767, no. 1.

拍品专文

At the Salon of 1767, Van Loo exhibited two oval paintings, La Peinture and La Sculpture (no. 1). Although the dimensions of the present painting differ slightly (it may have been reduced at the edges), it corresponds perfectly to Diderot's description of La Sculpture (loc.cit.): 'on la voit de face, la tête coiffée à la romaine, le regard assuré, le bras droit retourné et le dos de la main appuyé sur la hanche; l'autre bras posé sur la selle à modeler, l'ébauchoir à la main. Il y a sur la selle un Buste commencé.'

It is not clear whether the figure in the painting is a portrait. As Dr. Christine Rolland notes, the distinction between portraiture and allegorical painting is blurred in Van Loo's oeuvre. This painting was probably intended to be seen from below, probably as an overdoor, hence the dramatic foreshortening of the right arm and elbow and the spatial distortions.

We are grateful to Dr. Christine Rolland for her assistance in cataloguing this lot.