Design for a ceiling: Apollo on his chariot, an allegory of Sunrise

The inscription on the verso suggests that this Apollo on his chariot is a study for a painting now lost executed for the room of the Regent, also known as Monsieur ('M.r’), in the Palais Royal ('p.R'). According to early sources, Noël Coypel made a few paintings for the Palais Royal, the residence of Gaston and Philippe d'Orléans (the future Regent), the uncle and brother of King Louis XIV. One of those paintings was a Sunrise on canvas which decorated the ceiling of the Grand Cabinet du Roi. Dézallier d'Argenville (1680-1765), who owned this drawing and probably is the author of the inscription on the verso, described the painting in the first edition of his Abrégé de la vie des plus fameux peintres published in 1745, but does not mention it in the later editions which may mean it had already disappeared. The painting for the Palais Royal and hence the present drawing must date from the 1660s.