Christ among the doctors

Details

CHARLES-JOSEPH NATOIRE (NîMES 1700-1777 CASTEL GANDOLFO)
Christ among the doctors
with inscription ‘C. nat.’ (lower left)
black chalk, pen and brown ink, gray and brown wash, watermark crowned eagle in a cartouche under cardinal’s hat
7 3⁄8 x 10 ¼ in. (18.6 x 25.9 cm)

Provenance

The artist’s estate; Hôtel d’Aligre, Paris, 14 December 1778, lot 296.
Anonymous sale; Hôtel Drouot, Paris, 4 July 1995, lot 10.
Anonymous sale; Christie’s, New York, 30 January 1998, lot 242.

Literature

F. Boyer, ‘Catalogue raisonné de l’œuvre de Charles Natoire, Peintre du Roi (1700-177)’, Archives de l’art français, new series, XXI, 1949, p. 105, no. 679.
S. Caviglia-Brunel, Charles Joseph Natoire 1700-1777, Paris, 2012, no. D 552, ill.

Conditions of sale

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Lot Essay

After training in Rome and a career as a history painter in Paris, Charles-Joseph Natoire returned to the Eternal City as head of the Académie de France in Rome (1751-1777). According to Susanna Caviglia this drawing ‘is a fine example of Natoire’s sensitivity in the use of wash’ from the period between 1755 and 1765. The two figures in profile in the foreground are reminiscent of the monks from the Camaldolese monastery in Frascati depicted in a series of Landscapes in the Musée Atger in Montpellier (inv. MA 57, album M 43 f° 18; Caviglia, op. cit., no. D675; and inv. MA 11, album M 43 f° 15; ibid., no. D677).

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