Lot 134: CHARLES DE LA FOSSE

CHARLES DE LA FOSSE PARIS 1636 - 1716 THREE CHILDREN PEERING FROM BEHIND A COLUMN AND A STUDY OF A MAN'S TORSO Red and black chalk heightened with white chalk; with some slight studies on the verso of a standing man, the head of a man, and an arm 425 by 257 mm

Bears collector's numbering in brown ink, verso: 186

The figures in the present sheet are preparatory for De la Fosse's late painting The Adoration of the Magi, now in the Louvre (fig. 1).υ1 The painting, dated 1715, is part of a cycle of eight commissioned by Canon Antoine de la Porte for the choir of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris, for which De la Fosse also executed The Nativity.

At least three other preparatory drawings have been connected with the painting: a compositional study in red and black chalk and pen and brown ink in a private collection, Lisbon, and two studies for the moors' heads in red and black chalk with touches of pastel, both in the British Museum.υ2

1. Inv. no. M.I. 316; see C. Gustin-Gomez, Charles de la Fosse 1636-1716, Catalogue raisonné, Dijon 2006, vol. II, pp. 128-9, cat. no. P.193
2. Idem, respectively p. 214, cat. no. D.90 and pp. 198-9, cat. nos. D.51-2