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Lot Essay
Yves Picart (op. cit., 1992, p. 465) has identified the present painting with the Marriage of the Virgin recorded at the time of the Revolution in the Convent of the Carmes Dechaussés, Paris. Located on the rue de Vaugirard and founded in 1613 by Queen Marie de Medici, the convent was devoted to Saint Joseph. The Marriage of the Virgin may well have been commissioned as an altarpiece for the convent circa 1658 by Antoine de Vins de Gaillon, seigneur d'Hérouval, whose coat-of-arms can be seen on the picture.
The source for this version of the Marriage of the Virgin is the New Testament apocrypha. The High Priest had called all the single men from David's family to the Temple to find a husband for the Virgin. Joseph was chosen by a divine sign, the miraculous flowering of his rod. Around Joseph are the unsuccessful suitors who still hold their rods while one of them, in a fit of rage, breaks his across his knee.
Born in Orléans, Michel Corneille the elder entered the studio of Simon Vouet in Paris circa 1632. He became a successful religious painter working in a monumental style inspired by Raphael. Although many of his works have been lost, two of his major commissions for Nôtre-Dame have survived, the Baptism of the Roman Centurion (Église Saint Pierre, Toulouse) and Saints Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras). Another important commission, the décor painted for the Galerie de Psyché, Hôtel Amelot de Bisseuil, can still be seen in situ on the Rue Vieille du Temple in Paris.
A preparatory drawing for the standing figure of the Virgin is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.
The source for this version of the Marriage of the Virgin is the New Testament apocrypha. The High Priest had called all the single men from David's family to the Temple to find a husband for the Virgin. Joseph was chosen by a divine sign, the miraculous flowering of his rod. Around Joseph are the unsuccessful suitors who still hold their rods while one of them, in a fit of rage, breaks his across his knee.
Born in Orléans, Michel Corneille the elder entered the studio of Simon Vouet in Paris circa 1632. He became a successful religious painter working in a monumental style inspired by Raphael. Although many of his works have been lost, two of his major commissions for Nôtre-Dame have survived, the Baptism of the Roman Centurion (Église Saint Pierre, Toulouse) and Saints Paul and Barnabas at Lystra (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Arras). Another important commission, the décor painted for the Galerie de Psyché, Hôtel Amelot de Bisseuil, can still be seen in situ on the Rue Vieille du Temple in Paris.
A preparatory drawing for the standing figure of the Virgin is in the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Munich.