Literature
G. Guillet de Saint Georges, Mémoire historique des ouvrages de M. le Sueur, l'un des douze anciens de l'Académie, Paris 1690, p. 148 (re-edited L. Dussieux, "Nouvelles recherches sur la vie et les ouvrages de Le Sueur", in Archives de l'art français, 1852, pp. 3 and 60);
A.N. Dezalliers d'Argenville fils, Voyage pittoresque de Paris, Paris 1749, p. 21;
M. Hébert, Dictionnaire pittoresque et historique, Paris 1766, vol. I, p. 17;
D.P. Paillon de la Ferté, Extraits des différents ouvrages publis sur la vie des peintres, Paris 1776, vol. II, p. 484;
D. Bozzani, Galleria Bonaparte, Roma 13 giugno 1804, Archivio di Stato, Romr, Camerale II, Antichità Belle Arti 7;
A. Guattani, Galleria del Senatore Luciano Bonaparte, Rome 1808;
C. Landon, Annales du Musée et de l'Ecole moderne des Beaux-Arts, 1830, vol. II, pp. 16-17;
L. Bonaparte, Choix de gravures à l'eau forte d'après les peintures originales et les marbres de la galerie de Lucien Bonaparte, London 1812;
J.B. Gence, "Le Sueur", in Biographie universelle ancienne et moderne, Paris 1819, vol. XXIV, p. 328;
W. Buchanan, Memoirs of painting, London 1824, vol. II, p. 292, cat. no. 154;
L. Veyran, Collection de 500 gravures au brin reproduisant les principaux chefs d'oeuvre de la peinture et de la sculpture du Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1877, 4th series;
A. Lecoy de la Marche, La peinture religieuse, Paris 1892, p. 183;
M. Furcy-Raynaud, "Les tableaux et objets d'art saisis chez les émigrés et envoyés au Museum central", in Archives de l'art français, vol. VI, 1912, p. 257;
J.J. Guiffrey, "Histoire de l'Académie de Saint-Luc", in Archives de l'art français, vol. IX, 1915, pp. 95 and 125;
G. Rouchès, Eustache Le Sueur, Paris 1923, pp. 75-76 and 97;
D. Martinez de la Pena, "Sobre la colección de pinturas de Luciano Bonaparte. Documentos del anno 1804", in Miscelanea de Arte, Instituto Diego Velasquez, Madrid 1982, p. 252;
M. Sapin, "Précisions sur l'histoire de quelques tableaux d'Eustache Le Sueur", in Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, 1986, cat. no. 25, reproduced fig. 15;
B. Foucart, Le renouveau de le peinture religieuse en France, Paris 1987, p. 177;
A. Mérot, Eustache Le Sueur 1616-1655, Paris 1987, pp. 20, 25, 57, 61, 181-82, 221 and 369, cat. no. 34 (where listed as 'lost');
M. Hilaire, et al., Century of Splendour. Seventeenth century French Painting in French Public collections, exhibition catalogue, Montreal, Museum of Fine Arts, 21 January - 28 March 1993; Rennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 14 April - 20 June 1993; and Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 1 July - 5 September 1993, p. 211 (as 'his masterpiece' and considered lost);
A. Mérot, La peinture française au XVIIème siècle, Paris 1994, p. 145;
A. Mérot, "Un tableau retrouvé d'Eustache Le Sueur: Saint Paul guérissant un possédé", in Revue de l'art, no. 105, 1994, pp. 70-71;
B. Ederlein-Badie, La collection de Lucien Bonaparte, prince de Canino, Paris, 1997, pp. 209-10, no. 127;
A. Mérot, Eustache Le Sueur 1616-1655, Paris 2000, pp. 181-83, cat. no. 34, the engraving reproduced as fig. 45 (considered lost);
A. Mérot, Eustache Le Sueur, exhibition catalogue, Grenoble, Musée de Grenoble, 19 March - 2 July 2000, p. 49;
A. Merle du Bourg, in Tableaux Français du XVIIe siècle, 2005-2006, exhibition catalalogue, Paris 2005, pp. 66-75.
ENGRAVED:
Pauquet (according to Dussieux, see Literature);
Jean Massard, the Elder (1740-1822);
Charles Normand, 1811 (according to Landon, see Literature);
Larcher (only the central group), in reverse, 1812;
Banzo, 1816;
Provenance
Painted circa 1645 and presented by the artist as his Reception Piece to the Académie de Saint-Luc and exhibited there until its closing in 1776. The work is mentioned in an inventory of that year: "...un tableau d'Eustache Le Sueur peint sur toile portant 5 pieds 4 pouces sur 5 pieds trois pouces, rep. Saint Paul qui guérit les possédés dans une bordure de bois sculpté et doré, les figures duquel sont de 3 pieds et demi de proportion";
Sale of the 'effects' of the Académie de Saint-Luc, Paris, where purchased by M. de Boynes;
His sale, Paris, Paillet, 15 March 1785, lot 67 (as Saint Pierre qui guérit l'aveugle);
M. de Bellisard (or Belizard), architect to the Prince de Condé, until 14 June 1797 when his possessions were seized by the French Government;
Lucien Bonaparte, Prince de Canino (1775-1840), Rome, by 1804;
His sale, London, 6 February 1815, lot 143, unsold;
His sale, London, Stanley, 14-16 May 1816, lot 152, unsold;
His sale, Paris, 25 December 1822 - 10 January 1823, lot 50;
Private collection, Sweden;
With Colnaghi, London, by 1994;
Purchased from the above by the present owner in 1998.
Notes
This painting, lost to scholars for almost two centuries and only previously known through 19th-century engravings, boasts an extremely distinguished provenance. After hanging in the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris, where the artist presented the work as his Reception Piece, from 1646 to 1776, the painting regularly changed owners and country. Passing into the collection of Napoleon's younger brother, Lucien Bonaparte in Rome after the upheavels of the late 1790s, it was then brought to England, only to be subsequently sold in Paris in 1823 before disappearing from the market for more than 150 years before it re-emerged to scholars in the late 1990s.
Le Sueur's style changed a great deal in the 1640s. He began to move away from the baroque elegance of his master, Simon Vouet, and started to look back to Raphael. The Italian master's engravings were well known in Parisian artistic circles and the present composition's indebtedness to Raphael's Blinding of Elymas is inescapable. (1) Following the example of Poussin, whose brief séjour in Paris between1640 and 1642 had profoundly altered artistic tastes, Le Sueur moved towards more complex and emotionally-charged compositions and this shift is visible in the present work. Engravings of Domenichino's work must also have been readily available, as testified by the similarity between the figure of the possessed man and that of Saint Jerome in the Domenichino's Communion of Saint Jerome in the Vatican. (2) Yet the style Le Sueur developed was very much his own. The rich palette, particularly in the reds and blues, is characteristic; the low forehead and distinct nose are typical of his figures, as are the pronounced reactions of each spectator.
1. See P. De Vecchi, Raffaello, l'opera completa, Milan 1979, p. 114, cat. no. 116C, reproduced.
2. See R. Spear, Domenichino, New Haven 1982, vol. I, pp. 175-78, cat. no. 41, reproduced vol. II, plate 141.
