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Lot Essay
Carle Vanloo was the most influential painter of a family of Flemish artists. He was active mostly in Paris, where he was appointed premier peintre to the King in 1762 and Director of the French Academy the following year. A versatile painter of portraits, history pictures, landscapes and exotic Turkish genre scenes, Vanloo dominated major commissions with few true rivals.
Vanloo was born in Nice in 1705 but raised from the age of seven in Turin by his older brother, Jean-Baptiste, then court painter to the Duke of Savoy, following the death of their father. By 1719 Carle was back in France, assisting in the restoration of the Galerie François Premier at Fontainebleau. In 1727 he travelled with Boucher to Rome, where he was influenced by the refined classicism of Raphael and Carlo Maratta. Seven years later he was agréé at the French Academy, where he was given the honour of selecting his own subject for his reception piece, following in the footsteps of Watteau in 1717. However, unlike Watteau, who submitted the first fête galante to the Academy, Vanloo presented a history picture, Apollo flaying Marsyas in 1735 (Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). From this point onward he never lacked commissions, losing his dominance only with the rise of Neo-classicism.
Painted in 1764, the present work is the last known surviving modello for a series of six paintings destined for the chapel of Saint Gregoire in the church of Saint Louis des Invalides, Paris, which were never realised as the artist died in July of the following year. The modelli were engraved after the artist's death revealing the full extent of the project (see fig. 1), which was no doubt intended to emulate the much lauded series of six scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine that Vanloo painted between 1746 and 1755 for the choir of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris (still in situ).
Vanloo was born in Nice in 1705 but raised from the age of seven in Turin by his older brother, Jean-Baptiste, then court painter to the Duke of Savoy, following the death of their father. By 1719 Carle was back in France, assisting in the restoration of the Galerie François Premier at Fontainebleau. In 1727 he travelled with Boucher to Rome, where he was influenced by the refined classicism of Raphael and Carlo Maratta. Seven years later he was agréé at the French Academy, where he was given the honour of selecting his own subject for his reception piece, following in the footsteps of Watteau in 1717. However, unlike Watteau, who submitted the first fête galante to the Academy, Vanloo presented a history picture, Apollo flaying Marsyas in 1735 (Paris, Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts). From this point onward he never lacked commissions, losing his dominance only with the rise of Neo-classicism.
Painted in 1764, the present work is the last known surviving modello for a series of six paintings destined for the chapel of Saint Gregoire in the church of Saint Louis des Invalides, Paris, which were never realised as the artist died in July of the following year. The modelli were engraved after the artist's death revealing the full extent of the project (see fig. 1), which was no doubt intended to emulate the much lauded series of six scenes from the Life of Saint Augustine that Vanloo painted between 1746 and 1755 for the choir of Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris (still in situ).