Lot Essay
Mentioned by Diderot in his review of the Salon of 1761 (see Diderot, op. cit.), this picture can also be identified in a notable sketch made of the Salon by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin in his copy of the livret du Salon (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale; Gaehtgens and Lugand, op. cit., p. 170). Gaehtgens and Lugand suggested a dating of circa 1761, unaware that it is dated 1758. This makes it earlier than the smaller picture of the same subject, which is dated 1759 and was included in the Salon in the same year (ibid., p. 166, no. 162, p. 162). The exhibition of the present painting at the Salon may have been delayed until 1761 so that it could be shown along side Vien's Cupid and Psyche (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lille), no. 24 in the same Salon. Although these two paintings are not exactly pendants, they evidently formed parts of the same decorative scheme, which may also have included a 'Venus punishing Cupid' (ibid., p. 169, no. 174, pl. 174). The only recorded sketch for the painting under consideration (ibid., p. 169, no. 173, pl. 173) was included in the Christie's 1990 sale as lot 129.
A protégé of the great French connoisseur and collector the Comte de Caylus, Vien entered the studio of Natoire at an early age and attained the coveted prix de Rome of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1745. The neoclassical tendencies he developed there ran so counter to the reigning taste of the age that, when he returned to Paris, it was only through the intervention of Boucher that Vien's 'Daedalus and Icarus' was accepted for his admission to the Académie. In 1776, at the height of his reputation, Vien became the director of the French Academy in Rome. One of the first French neoclassicists, among the many pupils in whom he nourished the neoclassical style were Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) and François-André Vincent (1746-1816).
A protégé of the great French connoisseur and collector the Comte de Caylus, Vien entered the studio of Natoire at an early age and attained the coveted prix de Rome of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1745. The neoclassical tendencies he developed there ran so counter to the reigning taste of the age that, when he returned to Paris, it was only through the intervention of Boucher that Vien's 'Daedalus and Icarus' was accepted for his admission to the Académie. In 1776, at the height of his reputation, Vien became the director of the French Academy in Rome. One of the first French neoclassicists, among the many pupils in whom he nourished the neoclassical style were Jacques-Louis David (1748-1825) and François-André Vincent (1746-1816).