Philip Mercier (Berlin 1689-1760 London)
Philip Mercier (Berlin 1689-1760 London)

The Bible Lesson, or L'instruction Maternelle

Details
Philip Mercier (Berlin 1689-1760 London)
The Bible Lesson, or L'instruction Maternelle
oil on canvas
39½ x 50 1/8 in. (100.3 x 127.3 cm.)
Provenance
Baron Rothschild.
John Wanamaker, as 'Chardin'.
Sale, Sedelmeyer, Paris, 1895, lot 61, as 'Chardin'.
Literature
John Wanamaker Catalogue of ...Pictures...Compiled by E.C. Siter, Philadelphia, n.d. (c. 1904), no. 9, p. 14, illus., p. 109 as 'Chardin'.
J. Ingamells and R. Raines, 'A catalogue of the paintings, drawings and etchings of Philip Mercier', The Walpole Society, XLVI, 1978, no. 233, pp. 54-5 as an autograph replica of the work then in the Hildyard collection.

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Lot Essay

Depicting the artist's family, and thought to show them reading the Pilgrim's Progress rather than the Bible as its original title suggests, this picture can be dated to the early years that Mercier lived in York, and placed together with a group of 'Fancy Pictures' reflecting a national taste for simple, moving and sentimental scenes. The Bible Lesson was engraved by J. Faber in 1744, during the decade of Mercier's greatest activity. The taste in England at this time for domestic subjects that tended to be simple, sentimental, and anecdotal in content reflected the influence of such great French painters as Jean-Baptist-Siméon Chardin to whom this composition was attributed for many years (see, for instance, Chardin's The School Mistress, 1731-32, The National Gallery, London).

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