A trompe-l'oeil: A palette with a spatula and paint brushes, an engraving, an oil painting, and a drawing with a pen and compass on a wooden partition

De la Motte was active in Tournai, where he entered the Guild of Saint Luke in 1653. In 1670, he worked on the decoration of the triumphal arches commemorating Louis XIV's second entry into the city. His remaining oeuvre of about a dozen pictures includes trompe-l'oeil still lifes often with, among other things, prints or letters attached to a wooden partition (see M. Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France: Le XVIIIème siècle, Fribourg and Paris, 1974, pp. 162-7).

The artist had a preference for the landscapes of the Pérelle family, which he often appropriated for his compositions. The red chalk drawing is a quotation, in reverse, of Michelangelo's red chalk Study for the head of the Doni Madonna from 1503-04 (Florence, Casa Buonarroti). De la Motte also copied, with some differences, a trompe-l'oeil by the Dutch painter Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts (Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon and Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen; see P. Mauriès, Le Trompe-l'oeil de l'Antiquité au XXème siècle, Paris and Turin, 1996, pp. 160-1, figs. 130 and 132).

A trompe-l'oeil, most likely by de la Motte, was sold at Christie's, New York, 3 October 2001, lot 62, as 'North Italian School, 18th Century'.