Details
Claude Vignon (Tours 1593-1670 Paris)
Princess Camma
inscribed 'cama' (recto) and with inscription 'CAMA' and with attribution 'Claude Vignon 1630' (on the mount)
red and black chalk
12½ x 8 3/8 in. (31.9 x 21.2 cm)
Provenance
M.H. Bloxam, by whom given to Rugby School Art Museum; with his initials 'M:H:B' and inscription 'Rugby School Art Museum e.d. Matt: H: Bloxam' and 'French/ A. D. 1590-1670' (on the mount).
Literature
Anne Popham, typescript catalogue, no. 76.

J. Lejeaux, 'Charles Poërson, 1609-1667, and the Tapestries of the Life of the Virgin in the Strasbourg Cathedral', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, sixth series, XXX, July 1946, pp. 24-26, figs. 5, 6.
P. Rosenberg, 'Some drawings by Claude Vignon', Master Drawings, IV, 1966, p. 290.
D. Sutton, Drawings from the National Gallery of Ireland, exhib. cat., London, Wildenstein, 1967, p. 16, under no. 25.
P. Ramade, 'Une source d'inspiration du XVIIe siècle, La Galerie des femmes fortes de Claude Vignon', Bulletin des amis du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rennes, no. 3, 1980, p. 25.
P. Pacht-Bassani, 'A proposito di alcuni disegni di Claude Vignon', Paragone, 377, July 1981, p. 18, fig. 27a.
H.T. Goldfarb, From Fontainebleau to the Louvre: French Drawings from the Seventeenth Century, exhib. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art, and elsewhere, 1989-1990, p. 136, under no. 66.
P. Pacht-Bassani, Claude Vignon, 1593-1670, Paris, 1992, no. 440.
C. Mignot and P. Bassani, eds. Claude Vignon en son temps. Actes du colloque international de l’Université de Tours (28-29 Janvier 1994), Paris, 1998, pp. 193, 205 (n. 17)
B. Brejon de Lavergnée, ed., Dessins français du XVIIe siècle. Inventaire de la collection de la Réserve du département des Estampes et de la Photographie, Paris, 2014, p. 232, under no. 289.
Engraved
by Gilles Rousselet and Abraham Bosse, as part of the Galerie des Femmes fortes (Pacht-Bassani, op. cit., no. 440 G, ill.).

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Lot Essay

Claude Vignon, one of the most original painters active in seventeenth-century France, was also a prolific designer of prints (for a complete overview of his career, see Pacht Bassani, op. cit.). He and his public seem to have been especially fond of series representing monumental standing figures, with smaller scenes illustrating episodes from the subject’s life depicted in the background, as in his series of Sibyls (ibid., nos. 184-195, ill.), the Seven Sages of Greece (nos. 294-300), and the builders of the Seven Wonders of the World (nos. 301-307).

In 1647, Vignon added to these series a ‘Galerie des Femmes fortes’, depicting twenty-one remarkable women from ancient, Jewish and Christian history (ibid., 434-454, ill.). The prints were executed by Gilles Rousselet (for the main figure) and Abraham Bosse (for the background), and published by Pierre I Mariette. Among the women features Camma, the Galatian Princess mentioned by Plutarch. When the tetrarch Sinorix, having killed her husband Sinatus, wanted to marry her, she poisoned both him and herself, and died as a model of virtue and courage. In Vignon’s composition Camma’s death is illustrated in the background, set in a temple, while in the foreground she is seen pointing to heaven and holding the cup in which the poisoned drink was served.

As with the other drawings for the series and for models for similar series, Vignon used red chalk for the large figures and black chalk for the background scenes (see ibid., passim; and In Arte Venustas. Studies on Drawings in Honour of Teréz Gerszi, Budapest, 2007, pp. 142-147, under no. 45, text by S. Folds McCullagh). Several of the drawings for the ‘Femmes fortes’ survive, but the Bloxam sheet, which was the first drawing by the artist ever to be published (Lejeaux, op. cit.; see also Rosenberg, op. cit.), is the last remaining in private hands (the one representing Cleopatra (Pacht-Bassani, op. cit., no. 454, ill.) was recently acquired for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, inv. 2010.158). Paula Pacht-Bassani praises the Bloxam drawing as an outstanding example of the artist’s mature style, characterized by ‘volume and stability of form; a strong, thick and broad handling of the red chalk, lighter and more nervous in the use of the black chalk’ (ibid., p. 440).

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