拍品专文
The iconography of the present drawing is difficult to interpret since the Muses are usually represented with Apollo, as in Raphael's famous fresco in the Vatican, or together with the nine Pierides, the daughters of Pieros, who had challenged the Muses to a singing contest and were eventually changed into magpies, as recounted by Ovid in the Metamorphoses, V. 250-678. The singing contest was depicted in a print by Giacomo Caraglio after Rosso Fiorentino, Illustrated Bartsch XV, 53. That print, very similar in composition to the present drawing, must be one of the sources of Brébiette's drawing.
The scene depicted by Brébiette might be related to another story from Ovid: Minerva's visit to the Muses on Mount Helicon to listen to their music and see the sacred spring, the Hippocrene, which Pegasus had struck with his hoof from a rock. The spring can be seen to the right of Venus in the present sheet. Brébiette's drawing, however, deviates from the common iconography and represents the other Goddesses and not Pegasus.
The Muses can be identifed, from left to right as Erato, with a lyre; Thalia with a viol; Calliope with a trumpet; Terpsichore with a harp; Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, with a horn. On the right side of the drawing: Clio holding a book; Polymnia playing an organ; possibly Urania with a viola di gamba, although she is usually holding a globe and a compass; and Euterpe playing the flute.
The unusual iconography of the drawing might stem from Jacques Favereau's book Tableaux du Temple des Muses conceived in the 1630s and illustrated by Brébiette. Favereau died in 1638 before the book was published and the rights were bought for fifteen years by Michel de Marolles, the drawing collector. Marolles later sold the privilège to his friend Sommaville who published in 1655 the Tableaux du Temple des Muses with Nicolas Langlois. The conception and the iconography of the book was described by Marolles in the introduction of the 1655 edition: 'L'invention de tous ces tableaux est deüe à M. Favereau, Conseiller du Roy en sa Cour des Aydes à Paris, qui sans doute avait dessein d'en faire davantage, & d'y joindre des discours selon les idées qu'il en avait conceües...J'ay changé d'avis depuis l'édition de nostre premier livre pour donner à tout l'ouvrage un titre plus court que celuy que j'avais choisi de Tableaux des Vertus & des Vices, sur les plus illustres Fables de l'Antiquité' in W. McAllister Johnson, From Favereau Tableaux des Vertus et des Vices to Marolles' Tableaux du Temple des Muses, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, October 1968, pp. 173-4.
Brébiette executed a number of drawings for Favereau's poems that were engraved by Cornelis Bloemaert, Charles David, Theodor Matham and Michel Lasne. Some of the drawings for The Temple des Muses are in the Louvre and are very close in technique to the present sheet, J. Guiffrey and P. Marcel, Inventaire général des dessins du Musée du Louvre et du Musée de Versailles, Paris, 1908, II, nos. 1747-9, illustrated. The drawings for Favereau's poems must have been executed before the latter's death in 1638 as one of these (Guiffrey and Marcel, op. cit., no. 1749) was used in an engraving of Saint Sebastian by Quesnel in 1638.
Brébiette must have met Favereau in the circle of Gaston d'Orléans, the King's brother. He entered that circle when he married the daughter of the poet Neufgermain who was protected by Gaston d'Orléans.
The type of composition is similar to that used by Brébiette for two etchings of The three Graces, one of which shows the Graces in a similar position to Juno, Minerva and Venus in the present drawing (fig. 1).
Another large drawing in red chalk by Brébiette was sold in these Rooms, 15 January 1992, lot 65, illustrated.
The scene depicted by Brébiette might be related to another story from Ovid: Minerva's visit to the Muses on Mount Helicon to listen to their music and see the sacred spring, the Hippocrene, which Pegasus had struck with his hoof from a rock. The spring can be seen to the right of Venus in the present sheet. Brébiette's drawing, however, deviates from the common iconography and represents the other Goddesses and not Pegasus.
The Muses can be identifed, from left to right as Erato, with a lyre; Thalia with a viol; Calliope with a trumpet; Terpsichore with a harp; Melpomene, the Muse of Tragedy, with a horn. On the right side of the drawing: Clio holding a book; Polymnia playing an organ; possibly Urania with a viola di gamba, although she is usually holding a globe and a compass; and Euterpe playing the flute.
The unusual iconography of the drawing might stem from Jacques Favereau's book Tableaux du Temple des Muses conceived in the 1630s and illustrated by Brébiette. Favereau died in 1638 before the book was published and the rights were bought for fifteen years by Michel de Marolles, the drawing collector. Marolles later sold the privilège to his friend Sommaville who published in 1655 the Tableaux du Temple des Muses with Nicolas Langlois. The conception and the iconography of the book was described by Marolles in the introduction of the 1655 edition: 'L'invention de tous ces tableaux est deüe à M. Favereau, Conseiller du Roy en sa Cour des Aydes à Paris, qui sans doute avait dessein d'en faire davantage, & d'y joindre des discours selon les idées qu'il en avait conceües...J'ay changé d'avis depuis l'édition de nostre premier livre pour donner à tout l'ouvrage un titre plus court que celuy que j'avais choisi de Tableaux des Vertus & des Vices, sur les plus illustres Fables de l'Antiquité' in W. McAllister Johnson, From Favereau Tableaux des Vertus et des Vices to Marolles' Tableaux du Temple des Muses, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, October 1968, pp. 173-4.
Brébiette executed a number of drawings for Favereau's poems that were engraved by Cornelis Bloemaert, Charles David, Theodor Matham and Michel Lasne. Some of the drawings for The Temple des Muses are in the Louvre and are very close in technique to the present sheet, J. Guiffrey and P. Marcel, Inventaire général des dessins du Musée du Louvre et du Musée de Versailles, Paris, 1908, II, nos. 1747-9, illustrated. The drawings for Favereau's poems must have been executed before the latter's death in 1638 as one of these (Guiffrey and Marcel, op. cit., no. 1749) was used in an engraving of Saint Sebastian by Quesnel in 1638.
Brébiette must have met Favereau in the circle of Gaston d'Orléans, the King's brother. He entered that circle when he married the daughter of the poet Neufgermain who was protected by Gaston d'Orléans.
The type of composition is similar to that used by Brébiette for two etchings of The three Graces, one of which shows the Graces in a similar position to Juno, Minerva and Venus in the present drawing (fig. 1).
Another large drawing in red chalk by Brébiette was sold in these Rooms, 15 January 1992, lot 65, illustrated.