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Lot Essay
Jean-Baptist Oudry’s talent for constructing scenes that ally the charms of crafted beauty with those of luxuriant nature shine in the present painting. Using soapy water collected from his shell-shaped dish, a monkey blows a bubble against a backdrop of blue sky and clouds. His pose, worthy of a Hellenistic sculpture, heightens the animal’s anthropomorphic dimension while simultaneously celebrating artistic artifice. The tufts of fur on the monkey’s face are echoed in the decorative feathers of the musette arranged on the ledge below. This wind instrument points to the composition’s function as an allegory of air, as does the sheet music resting beneath it. The song it records was composed by Louis Lemaire with lyrics by Bruseau and was featured in Recueil d'Airs sérieux et à boire (published in October 1718), acting as a petition to 'divine Sleep' to spare drunkards who are first tasting a new wine. The prominent position of the word ‘Airs’ within the painting further underscores its symbolic meaning, as does the monkey’s bubble—like music itself, this ethereal sphere will soon be borne aloft on the breeze.
The astonishing number of autograph variations of this theme indicates that it was one of Oudry's most popular and sought-after compositions. The earliest of these dates from 1719 and is part of a suite of overdoors representing the Four Elements that remained with Oudry until 1740, when they were acquired for the Royal Palace, Stockholm (where they still remain in situ). Other versions are in a private collection, Paris (H.N. Opperman, op. cit., 1982-3, no. 33b); the Manufacture de Porcelaine de Sèvres (ibid., no. 33c); the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (dated 1725; ibid., no. 33); and the Blaffer Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (dated 1722; ibid., no. 33b). The variations among the versions are great indeed and the only common elements are, in fact, the still life with musette and musical manuscript, which are repeated exactly in each of the six versions mentioned above. In every other way, including size, format and setting, each painting is entirely distinct.
As has been previously noted, the present painting should be regarded as a pendant to Oudry’s Allegory of Fire (Private Collection, sold Christie’s, New York, 27 January 2000, lot 41; fig. 1). While Oudry’s interpretation of this subject for the Four Elements series now in Stockholm includes a kitchen and a stove fire, the pendant to our Allegory of Air omits such details to focus on the hunting rifle and its trophies: a rabbit, partridge, pheasant and two quail displayed on the ground. Besides the rifle, the painting’s only allusion to the element of fire is a cottage burning in the distance. Jean Vergnet-Ruiz’s presumption that this Allegory of Fire, together with our Allegory of Air, was part of a series of Four Elements commissioned by Louis Fagon (loc. cit.), while logical, remains unsubstantiated due to the absence of companion Allegories of Earth and Water, or evidence that the latter two ever existed at the Château de Voré.
The astonishing number of autograph variations of this theme indicates that it was one of Oudry's most popular and sought-after compositions. The earliest of these dates from 1719 and is part of a suite of overdoors representing the Four Elements that remained with Oudry until 1740, when they were acquired for the Royal Palace, Stockholm (where they still remain in situ). Other versions are in a private collection, Paris (H.N. Opperman, op. cit., 1982-3, no. 33b); the Manufacture de Porcelaine de Sèvres (ibid., no. 33c); the Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio (dated 1725; ibid., no. 33); and the Blaffer Foundation, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Texas (dated 1722; ibid., no. 33b). The variations among the versions are great indeed and the only common elements are, in fact, the still life with musette and musical manuscript, which are repeated exactly in each of the six versions mentioned above. In every other way, including size, format and setting, each painting is entirely distinct.
As has been previously noted, the present painting should be regarded as a pendant to Oudry’s Allegory of Fire (Private Collection, sold Christie’s, New York, 27 January 2000, lot 41; fig. 1). While Oudry’s interpretation of this subject for the Four Elements series now in Stockholm includes a kitchen and a stove fire, the pendant to our Allegory of Air omits such details to focus on the hunting rifle and its trophies: a rabbit, partridge, pheasant and two quail displayed on the ground. Besides the rifle, the painting’s only allusion to the element of fire is a cottage burning in the distance. Jean Vergnet-Ruiz’s presumption that this Allegory of Fire, together with our Allegory of Air, was part of a series of Four Elements commissioned by Louis Fagon (loc. cit.), while logical, remains unsubstantiated due to the absence of companion Allegories of Earth and Water, or evidence that the latter two ever existed at the Château de Voré.