Details
JEAN-BAPTISTE OUDRY (PARIS 1686-1755 BEAUVAIS)
The man and the grass snake (Jean de La Fontaine, Fables choisies, book X, fable 1)
signed and dated ‘JB. Oudry/ 1732’ (lower right)
brush and black and gray ink, heightened with white, blue wash, pen and black and brown ink framing lines, on blue paper within a fictive mount
12 x 10 1⁄8 in. (31 x 26 cm)
Provenance
Jean-Louis Regnard de Montenault, Paris, circa 1751, together with all of the artist’s other illustrations for La Fontaine’s fables, bound in two albums.
with De Bure frères, Paris;
Jean-Jacques de Bure (1765-1853), Paris, 1828; Paris, 1-18 December 1853, part of lot 344 (both volumes), sold for 1,800 francs to
Comte Antoine-Claire Thibaudeau (1765-1854), Paris; both volumes possibly given by him to
Eugénie Doche (1821-1900), Paris; both volumes sold by her for 2,500 francs to
Librairie Fontaine, Paris; both volumes sold for 5,000 francs in 1856 to
Aaron Euryale dit Félix Solar (1815-1871), Paris; Paris, 19 November-18 December 1860, part of lot 627 (both volumes), sold for 6,100 francs in 1860 to Cléder for
Baron Isidore-Justin-Séverin Taylor (1789-1879), Paris.
Emile Péreire (1800-1875), Paris (both volumes).
with Librairie Morgand et Fatout, Paris, bought circa 1876 (Bulletin de la librairie Morgand et Fatout, I, no. 6, January 1877, p. 482); both volumes sold to
Louis Roederer (1845-1880), Reims; by inheritance to his nephew,
Louis-Victor Olry-Roederer (1860-1903), Reims.
with Agnew’s, London; both volumes sold in 1923, with the rest of Olry-Roederer’s library, to
Albert Simon Wolf Rosenbach (1875-1903), New York;
with Rosenbach Company, Philadelphia; both volumes sold circa 1946 to the following;
with Raphaël Esmérian (1903-1976), Paris (his ex-libris); Palais Galliera, Paris, 6 June 1973, part of lot 46 (both volumes), sold for 2,000,000 francs to the following;
with Claus Virch (1927-2012), Bermuda Islands (Art Associates Partnership), who dismembers the second album, which included the drawing offered here and the previous lots.
Anonymous sale; Sotheby’s, New York, 26 January 2000, lot 79.
Literature
J. Locquin, ‘Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Jean-Baptiste Oudry, peintre du roi (1686–1755)’, Archives de l’art français, VI, 1912, p. 168, under no. 1143.
H. N. Opperman, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, PhD dissertation, University of Chicago, 1972, published New York and London, 1977, II, no. D430.