Lot 55: Laurent de La Hyre (Paris 1605-1656)

Saint Paul shipwrecked on Malta oil on canvas 411/4 x 633/4 in. (104.8 x 161.9 cm.) NOTES One of eleven children (eight of whom went on to be artists), La Hyre first trained under his father, the painter and printmaker Etienne de La Hyre (c. 1583-1643) none of whose works are known to survive. As well as painting, he is also known to have received a thorough education in music, mathematics and architecture. He studied at the chƒteau de Fontainebleau between 1622 and 1625 and then joined the celebrated studio of Georges Lallemant in Paris. His earliest works were well received and led to further commissions for La Hyre which might explain why he chose to remain in Paris rather than complete his artistic education in Italy. Datable to around 1630, this picture, which has only recently been re-identified as the work of La Hyre, is entirely characteristic of his early 'mannerist' style. Despite not travelling abroad, La Hyre's early work reveals a clear debt to the Italian Caravaggist painters of the day, leading Pierre Rosenberg and Jacques Thuillier to pose the question 'Vint-il … connƒitre des oeuvres caravagistes ou napolitaines apport‚es … Paris et qui l'impressionnŠrent? Il est bien malais‚ de le savoir' (catalogue of the exhibition, Laurent de la Hyre, Mus‚e de Grenoble, 1988, p. 143). In this respect the present picture is closely comparable with the overtly Caravaggesque Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew, of 1627, in the Cathedral at Mƒcon. The intricate spatial arrangement of the composition, the light and dark definition of the flesh tones and the fluid handling of drapery are common to both pictures. Moreover, La Hyre appears to have used the same model for the young male figure wearing a headscarf who features prominently in both pictures in a comparable downward looking pose. Similarly, the balding bearded man leaning over Saint Bartholomew in the centre of the Ma‡on picture seems to reappear here in the figure seen in profile in the right background. Both canvasses confirm La Hyre's place as one of the most innovative artists of his day. Rosenberg and Thuillier's ( loc. cit ) comments on the Ma‡on picture may well be applied to the present canvas '...dans un Paris qui n'avait pas pratiqu‚ le caravagisme, et ne le connaissait guŠre que par des ‚chos, elle pouvait ˆtre regard‚e comme le manifeste d'une peinture entiŠrement d‚livr‚e des prestiges "mani‚ristes"'.