Charles Parrocel* (1688-1752)

An oriental Figure seen from behind

Details
Charles Parrocel* (1688-1752)
An oriental Figure seen from behind
with inscription 'C. Parrocel'
red chalk
243 x 143 mm.
Provenance
J.-D. Lempereur (L. 1740).

Lot Essay

A study for the figure of an oriental in the foreground of the Entry of the Turkish Ambassador Mehemet Effendi into the Tuileries Gardens on 21 March 1721, executed between 1723 and 1727. The composition was later turned into a tapestry commissioned from the Manufacture de Gobelins in 1731. Drawings for the same composition are in the Louvre and the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford.
On Saturday, 8 March 1721, Mehemet Effendi arrived in Paris with a suite of eighty people. He had come to compliment the young King Louis XV on his coronation. The presence of the exotic embassy inspired many artists and writers among them C.A. Coypel and Montesquieu.