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Lot Essay
Hal Opperman suggested interpreting this figure of an archer as an allegorical representation of America (op. cit., p. 720). The drawing can be compared to the painting of America in Oudry’s series of overdoors with the Four Continents (Fig. 1; Christie’s, Paris, 30 May 2015, lot 46). Unique in the artist's work, but also in the history of painting, the four paintings each represent a continent depicted from a purely mercantile point of view, probably responding to the commission of a merchant. In the scene representing America, a trader negotiates the purchase of tobacco leaves from native Americans, while an archer is shooting arrows towards a parrot flying in the air. The parrot, together with the crocodile, was part of the established iconography for the New Continent.
The drawing, probably created some time before the painting, as suggested by Opperman, is not directly related to it, yet they share many elements in common. On the sheet Oudry focused his attention on the figure of the archer, here portrayed as a woman. There are no parrots or crocodiles in the drawing, only a snake slithering in the foreground. The setting, with palm trees and figures sitting on the ground, is similar in the drawn and painted compositions.
Although this allegory is unique in Oudry’s work, the iconography of America as a woman only partially dressed and carrying (or shooting) arrows had already been established in the visual arts by the end of the 16th Century, as attested, for example, by the widely distributed prints by the Flemish Jan Sadeler (see L. Markey, Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence, University Park, 2016, p. 106).
Fig.1. Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Allegory of America. Private collection.
The drawing, probably created some time before the painting, as suggested by Opperman, is not directly related to it, yet they share many elements in common. On the sheet Oudry focused his attention on the figure of the archer, here portrayed as a woman. There are no parrots or crocodiles in the drawing, only a snake slithering in the foreground. The setting, with palm trees and figures sitting on the ground, is similar in the drawn and painted compositions.
Although this allegory is unique in Oudry’s work, the iconography of America as a woman only partially dressed and carrying (or shooting) arrows had already been established in the visual arts by the end of the 16th Century, as attested, for example, by the widely distributed prints by the Flemish Jan Sadeler (see L. Markey, Imagining the Americas in Medici Florence, University Park, 2016, p. 106).
Fig.1. Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Allegory of America. Private collection.