ID 1172973
Lot 118 | PAULINE KNIP, NÉE RIFER DE COURCELLES (PARIS 1781-1851)
Estimate value
€ 20 000 – 30 000
Chouette de France sur une branche
signé ‘Pauline de Courcelles/ fem. [?] Knip’ (sur la branche en bas au centre)
graphite, aquarelle et gouache sur vélin
47,5 x 37,2 cm (18 5⁄8 x 14 5⁄8 in.)
Provenance
Probablement Paris, Musée royal des arts [musée du Louvre], Salon, 1814, n° 547 ‘La Chouette de France’ (Explication des ouvrages, de Peinture, Sculpture, Architecture et Gravure, des Artistes vivans, Paris, le 1er novembre 1814, p. 53, n° 547⁄3°).
Literature
R. Laruelle, ‘Un peintre d’oiseaux : Mme Pauline de Courcelles (Mme Knip)’, Revue catholique des revues françaises et étrangères, IV, 5 mai 1897, p. 740.
R. Ronsil, ‘Mme Knip, née Pauline de Courcelles et son œuvre ornithologique’, Journal of the Society for the Bibliography of Natural History, III, n° 4, janvier 1957, p. 219.
Further details
PAULINE KNIP, NÉE RIFER DE COURCELLES, AN OWL, GRAPHITE, WATERCOLOUR AND BODYCOLOUR ON VELLUM, SIGNED
A pupil of the great bird painter Jacques Barraband (1768-1809), the French Pauline Rifer de Courcelles married the renowned Dutch landscape artist Josephus Augustus Knip (1777-1847) in 1806. From that date onwards, her two names were often joined. She was awarded a gold medal in 1810 and lodgings at the Sorbonne. For the Manufacture de Sèvres, she also supplied models for porcelain services and vases between 1817 and 1826 (Laruelle, op. cit., p. 738), and illustrated prestigious ornithological works such as Histoire naturelle des Tangaras, des Manakins et des Todiers (1805) and Histoire naturelle des pigeons (1811), published respectively by Anselme-Gaëtan Desmaret (1784-1838) and by Coenraad Jacob Temminck (1778-1858). These publications made her a household name. Alongside her illustrative work, Knip was appointed ‘Premier peintre’ of Natural History to Josephine and later to Marie-Louise, Empress of the French from 1810 to 1814.
At the peak of her career, under the name ‘Pauline Knip (née de Courcelle)’, the artist exhibited several works at the Salon from 1808 to 1814, among which this wide-eyed French Owl in ‘a frame containing birds painted on vellum: 1° Le Manchot huppé/ 2° Le petit Courlis rouge/ 3° La Chouette de France/ 4° Le Canard à éventail de la Chine’. In the same year, she exhibited La Poule entourée de ses poussins, under no. 548, and Le Porte-lyre ou Oiseau de Paradis under no. 549 (the latter sold Christie’s, Paris, 22 November 2022, lot 1, and there purchased at the sale by Teylers Museum, Haarlem). Other examples of these large and rare drawings on vellums are in the Musée du Louvre (Manoura magnificat, exhibited at the Salon of 1812, no. 516; inv. 27327), and in the Museum d’Histoire naturelle, Paris (Perruque Lori, Salon of 1810, no. 443; inv. MNHN.OA.569).
| Applied technique: | Gouache, Painted |
|---|---|
| Medium: | Acrylic glass, Paper, Plastic |
| Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
| Auction house category: | All other types of objects, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Drawings, Watercolors and drawings |
| Applied technique: | Gouache, Painted |
|---|---|
| Medium: | Acrylic glass, Paper, Plastic |
| Place of origin: | Western Europe, France, Europe |
| Auction house category: | All other types of objects, Paintings, Watercolors, Drawings, Drawings, Watercolors and drawings |
| Address of auction |
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