Lot 149: JEAN LEMAIRE

THE PROPERTY OF A LADY PARIS 1597 - 1659 AN ARCHITECTURAL CAPRICCIO WITH ANCIENT RUINS, A TRIUMPHAL ARCH AND AN HAUT-RELIEF SCULPTURE, WITH THE STORY OF MERCURY AND ARGUS oil on canvas 76 by 73 cm.; 30 by 28 3/4 in.

M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, "La nobiltà della scultura. Orfeo Boselli e la cultura degli "antiquarii", in ed. A.P. Torresi, Orfeo Boselli. Osservazioni sulla scultura antica. I manoscritti di Firenze e di Ferrara, Ferrara 1994, p. 37, reproduced fig. 13; M. Fagiolo dell'Arco, Jean Lemaire, pittore "antiquario", Rome 1996, p. 194, cat. no. 37, reproduced.

Anonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 7 December 1977, lot 107 (as Attributed to Jean Lemaire); Private collection, Munich.

This characteristic work dates from the artist’s Roman sojourn in the mid-1630s. It is particularly close in style to Nicolas Poussin, with whom Lemaire collaborated and with whom he was closely associated: the two artists are known to have shared a house on via del Babuino in 1629.1 The triumphal arch in the immediate left foreground, with sculpted roundels reminiscent of those on the ancient Arch of Constantine, reappears in a number of compositions by Lemaire. It is a motif often combined with the arched aqueduct-like structure visible beyond: see, for example, Lemaire’s capricci in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, and in the Musée Vivenel, Compiègne.2 The haut-relief sculpture in the foreground, depicting figures gathered around a satyr playing the pan-pipes and a nymph playing the lyre, is a faithful representation of a detail from the tomb of Jacopo Sannazaro (c. 1536) in the church of Santa Maria del Parto, Naples, by the Florentine sculptor Giovanni Angelo de Montorsoli. Its inclusion here is crucially important for it confirms beyond doubt that Lemaire travelled to Naples to copy works for Cassiano del Pozzo’s ‘Museo Cartaceo’ (or ‘Paper Museum’).3 Lemaire treated the subject on another occasion; in a painting in the Blaffer Foundation, Houston, where the protagonists are given greater prominence, and in the latter's related preparatory drawing in Lyon.4 1. In September 1630 Poussin married Gaspard Dughet’s sister, Anne-Marie, and subsequently moved in with his brother-in-law. 2. See M. Fagiolo dell’Arco, under Literature, 1996, p. 161, cat. no. 8, and p. 172, cat. no. 17, both reproduced in colour. 3. Cassiano del Pozzo’s agenda mentions a ‘Monsù Le Mere’ at work on this project, copying ‘bassirilievi’ and ‘alcune cose’ in Naples (see F. Solinas, ”Percorsi Puteani: note naturalistiche ed inediti appunti antiquari”, in Cassiano del Pozzo, Rome 1989, p. 122). The ‘Museo Cartaceo’ was sold by Cassiano’s heirs to Pope Clement XI Albani where it remained until it was acquired (for the most part) by King George III in 1762. It is now in the Royal Library at Windsor Castle. 4. Fagiolo dell’Arco, op. cit., p. 191, cat. no. 34, reproduced in colour. The drawing in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon (inv. X.1029.2) is reproduced in ibid., p. 228, cat. no. D7.