Lot 203: EUSTACHE LE SUEUR (PARIS 1616 - 1655) AND STUDIO

POLYPHILUS AND POLIA ACCOMPANIED BY NYMPHS ON ISLAND OF CYTHERA

37 by 38 5/8 in.; 94 by 98 cm.

oil on canvas

Probably A. Mérot, Eustache Le Sueur, 1616-1655, Paris 1987, p. 167, no. 10 (as lost and known from a tapestry).

This painting depicts an episode from Francesco Colonna's Hypnerotomachia Poliphili ("Strife of Love in a Dream of Polyphilus"), a Renaissance romance in which the central character, Polyphilus, pursues his love, Polia, through a dreamlike landscape. First published in Venice in 1499, Colonna's book enjoyed immense popularity in 17 (th) century France largely due to a French translation by François Béroalde de Verville, first published in 1600 and reprinted in 1657.

Le Sueur produced a series of eight paintings based on the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili that were cartoons for tapestries. (1) The series, Le Songe de Polyphile, was the artist's first large undertaking and was painted over a number of years, circa 1636-1644. The scene depicted in the present painting is from the last chapter of Book I of the romance (translation of Béroalde de Verville, p. 127) in which Polyphilus, after many adventures, has been reunited with Polia. Having arrived on the island of Cythera, they rest by a fountain while Polia braids a crown of flowers for her beloved and begins to recount his story to the attendant nymphs.

We are grateful to Alain Mérot who has seen this painting firsthand and has confirmed it to be a work by Eustache Le Sueur with studio assistance.

1. Five other paintings from the series are known: Marine Gods Paying Homage to Love (Polyphilus and Polia being Ferried to Cythera), Malibu, The Getty Museum; Polyphilus Participating in the Triumph of Bacchus, Le Mans, Musée de Tessé; Polyphilus Bathing with Nymphs of Queen Eleuterylida, Dijon, Musée Magnin; Polyphilus Kneeling Before Queen Eleuterylida, Rouen, Musée des Beaux-Arts; Polyphilus Received by Philtronia at the Three Doors, Salzburg, Residenzgalerie.