ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D`AMBROISE DUBOIS - photo 1
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D`AMBROISE DUBOIS - photo 2
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D`AMBROISE DUBOIS - photo 3

ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D`AMBROISE DUBOIS

Lot 49
12.03.2024 14:00UTC +01:00
Classic
Starting price
€ 50 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationFrance, Paris
Archive
The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
Archive
ID 1164357
Lot 49 | ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D'AMBROISE DUBOIS
Estimate value
€ 50 000 – 80 000
ÉCOLE FRANÇAISE DU XVIIe SIÈCLE, ENTOURAGE D'AMBROISE DUBOIS

La toilette de Psyché

huile sur toile, sans cadre

213 x 179 cm. (83 7⁄8 x 70 ½ in.)





Provenance

Vente anonyme, Roubaix, 15 octobre 2018, (Me May), lot 106 (comme 'Ambroise Dubois et collaborateurs (?)').



Literature

Anonyme, 'Psyché à la mode bellifontaine', La gazette de l'hôtel Drouot, 12 octobre 2018, 35, p. 147 (comme 'Ambroise Dubois et collaborateurs (?)'), reproduit en couleurs p. 147.

Anonyme, 'Adjugé ! De la seconde école de Fontainebleau à la manufacture de Vincennes', Magazine des enchères, [en ligne], 23 octobre 2018 (mis à jour le 6 novembre 2018), https://magazine.interencheres.com/art-mobilier/adjuge-de-la-seconde-ecole-de-fontainebleau-a-la-manufacture-de-vincennes/.

Gismondi, Peintures et dessins bellifontains. Iconographie de la nouvelle Rome, Paris, 2020, pp. 77-101 (comme 'entourage d'Ambroise Dubois'), reproduit en couleurs p. 77 et pp. 88-89.

N. Gural, 'Peek Into The Most Grandiose Booths At TEFAF Maastricht, The World-Leading Art Fair', Forbes, [en ligne], 6 mars 2020, https://www.forbes.com/sites/natashagural/2020⁄03/06/peek-into-the-most-grandiose-booths-at-tefaf-maastricht-before-the-world-leading-art-fair-opens-to-the-public/.



Exhibited

Maastricht, MECC, The European Fine Art Foundation (TEFAF), 7-15 mars 2020.



Further details

FRENCH SCHOOL, 17th CENTURY, CIRCLE OF AMBROISE DUBOIS, THE TOILETTE OF PSYCHE, OIL ON CANVAS, UNFRAMED

The publication of Apuleius’ (circa 125-after 170) Metamorphosis in Rome in 1469 marked the rediscovery of this classical text, also known under the title The Golden Ass. The story of Cupid and Psyche, which took up two of the eleven books, is the most famous story to come from Apuleius’s text. The painting from the Gismondi gallery, discovered in 2018, takes as its subject the passage in which Psyche prepares to meet Cupid, who has fallen in love with the princess.

In 1959, Sylvie Béguin identified a red chalk drawing of the same subject in the collection of the Morgan Library & Museum (inv. no I, 50) as the work of Ambroise Dubois (1542-1614). The drawing takes its style from the First School of Fontainebleau. The figure of the child in the lower left-hand corner is very close to that seen in Les Cyclopes fabriquant les armes des amours dans la forge de Vulcain (Musée du Louvre, Paris, inv. no. 8533, see reverse), a study by Primatice (1504-1570) for a painting displayed above the fireplace in the King’s study in the château de Fontainebleau. (D. Cordellier, Primatice. Maître de Fontainebleau, ex. cat., Paris, 2004-2005, pp. 268-270, n°121).

In 1965 Fontainebleau acquired the Toilette de Psyché , previously in the collection of Sir Anthony Blunt (1907-1983), also by a follower of Dubois that displays a very similar composition to the present painting. Today three versions after Dubois’ original are known: the Fontainebleau example, the Gismondi painting and a third auctioned in 2015 (Anonymous sale, Lille, May 17th 2015 (Mercier), lot n° 326) (see S. Wirth, Ambroise Dubois : un maître de l'École de Fontainebleau, Saint-Rémy-en-l’Eau, 2022, pp. 283-284, n°PC24 et PC25). These each differ from the Morgan drawing in similar ways, such as the flowers in the vase to the right of the composition, which are not present in the drawing. It remains uncertain whether Dubois executed a painting based on his preparatory sketch.

The contents of Apuleius’ text was a great source of inspiration for artists from the second-half of the 15th Century onwards, and was used as the basis for a number of the most important commissions of the Renaissance. Amongst others can be cited the frescoes commissioned by Agostino Chigi (1466-1520) from Raffaello (1483-1520) for the Villa Farnesina in Rome, or those by Giulio Romano (circa 1492/1499-1546) for the Palazzo del Te in Matua. In France, the painter Nicolas de Hoey (active 1564-1622) executed the décor on this theme in the Château d’Ancy-le-Franc, which was probably also intended as an allegory of the marriage between Charles-Henry de Clermont-Tonnerre (1571-1640) and Catherine-Marie d’Escoubleau (†1615), which took place in 1597 (see M. Bélime-Droguet, Les décors peints du château d’Ancy-le-Franc (v. 1550-v. 1630), Toulouse, 2016). A 1692 Fontainebleau inventory carried out by M. d’Estrechy indicates that two paintings of the story of Cupid and Psyche by Ambroise Dubois were to be found in the Painting Cabinet (AN/O/1/1432 - see : Herbet, Le château de Fontainebleau. Les appartements - les cours - le parc - les jardins, Paris, 1937). Sadly, it has yet to be determined if these paintings can be firmly identified with ones still known to scholars today.
Applied technique:Oil on canvas
Art style:Old Masters
Genre:Mythological painting
Place of origin:Western Europe, France, Europe
Auction house category:Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Paintings
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