.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
Alexandre-François Desportes began his career in Paris in the studio of the elderly Flemish artist, Nicasius Bernaerts (1620–78), himself a former pupil of the renowned 17th-century still-life painter, Frans Snyders (1579-1657), and an animalier at the Gobelins. While their collaboration was to be short-lived, the older artist instilled in the young Desportes what would become a lifelong fascination with animal subjects and Flemish realism.
This impressive animal painting demonstrates the artist’s witty and exact observation of nature. The fox, who stares hungrily down from the knoll, has surprised the birds below, one of which, conscious of the danger, flees towards the pond that frames the composition to the right. Exquisitely described fur and plumage bristle and catch the light. Bernaerts had encouraged his young protegé to draw directly from nature and, indeed, Desportes is known to have made a great many studies of animals, birds and flowers from the life, of which more than 600 pencil drawings and oil sketches survive. It is likely that both fox and birds would have studied from life, although no related preparatory sketches are known. Instead, several of the birds depicted here are found in an oil study that Desportes executed after this painting as a record (see P. Jacky and G. de Lastic, op. cit., p. 131, no. P 516, illustrated). Around this period, he also painted a similar, simplified composition, which was formerly in the de Merval collection and is currently untraced (see op. cit., p. 132, no. P 519).
In 1699, Desportes was received into the Académie Royale as an animal painter, and shortly thereafter won the first of many royal commissions that were to span the next forty-three years: a group of five pictures for Louis XIV’s Ménagerie at Versailles. Two years later, the King commissioned for the château of Marly six portraits of his favorite hunting dogs, which were reputedly so life-like that he could identify each dog by name. Desportes continued to work for Louis XV as painter to the Royal Hunt and exhibited frequently at the Salon until 1742.
Desportes’ paintings brought him considerable critical and commercial success, and by the beginning of the 1710s, his artistic reputation had reached beyond the confines of France and into England. He received several commissions from members of the English nobility, among them, James, 1st Earl Stanhope (1673–1721), whose request for four-still lifes was the motivating force behind Desportes’ six-month sojourn in England in 1712. His short stint in the British Isles proved a prime opportunity to secure further work, as well as to market a selection of preexisting paintings that he had brought with him. Given the date of the present picture, as well as its early 20th-century British provenance, it is likely to have been among them.
This impressive animal painting demonstrates the artist’s witty and exact observation of nature. The fox, who stares hungrily down from the knoll, has surprised the birds below, one of which, conscious of the danger, flees towards the pond that frames the composition to the right. Exquisitely described fur and plumage bristle and catch the light. Bernaerts had encouraged his young protegé to draw directly from nature and, indeed, Desportes is known to have made a great many studies of animals, birds and flowers from the life, of which more than 600 pencil drawings and oil sketches survive. It is likely that both fox and birds would have studied from life, although no related preparatory sketches are known. Instead, several of the birds depicted here are found in an oil study that Desportes executed after this painting as a record (see P. Jacky and G. de Lastic, op. cit., p. 131, no. P 516, illustrated). Around this period, he also painted a similar, simplified composition, which was formerly in the de Merval collection and is currently untraced (see op. cit., p. 132, no. P 519).
In 1699, Desportes was received into the Académie Royale as an animal painter, and shortly thereafter won the first of many royal commissions that were to span the next forty-three years: a group of five pictures for Louis XIV’s Ménagerie at Versailles. Two years later, the King commissioned for the château of Marly six portraits of his favorite hunting dogs, which were reputedly so life-like that he could identify each dog by name. Desportes continued to work for Louis XV as painter to the Royal Hunt and exhibited frequently at the Salon until 1742.
Desportes’ paintings brought him considerable critical and commercial success, and by the beginning of the 1710s, his artistic reputation had reached beyond the confines of France and into England. He received several commissions from members of the English nobility, among them, James, 1st Earl Stanhope (1673–1721), whose request for four-still lifes was the motivating force behind Desportes’ six-month sojourn in England in 1712. His short stint in the British Isles proved a prime opportunity to secure further work, as well as to market a selection of preexisting paintings that he had brought with him. Given the date of the present picture, as well as its early 20th-century British provenance, it is likely to have been among them.