Offered by Galerie PhC
Oil on relined canvas 47 cm by 37 cm
Superb old frame 65 cm by 55 cm
The Louvre has a sketch of this painting, INV 2782 bis from the collection of the prince de Conti (purchased by the crown in 1777). This sketch is preparatory to one of the three paintings commissioned from the painter for the decoration of the Saint Catherine chapel of the Notre Dame de Versailles church, built between 1684 and 1686. The painter then produced several canvases of this sketch, including most certainly the one we offer, each time with the same design but with some color variations in the clothes. (Christie's Paris June 26, 2003, The Mystical Marriage, €13,500 including fees)
Bon Boulogne (1649; 1717)
He was one of the most admired history painters of the late reign of Louis XIV. Author of large secular and religious decorations as well as small paintings prized by collectors, he was also very appreciated as a portrait painter. A pupil of his father, the painter Louis, Bon Boullogne showed great aptitude for painting early on. It is believed that he helped him with his work in the Grande Galerie du Louvre. First prize of Rome in painting 1669. Boullogne stays five years in Rome, he makes copies of famous works, in particular some frescoes of Raphael intended to be reproduced in tapestries at the Gobelins. He left Rome to go to Lombardy to study Correggio and Annibale Carracci but also Guido Reni, Le Dominichino...which perhaps explains his great affinities throughout his career with Mythological painting and the school of Bologna. Back in France, he was received at the Royal Academy in 1677 and the following year, appointed professor and painter to the king. Louis XIV appreciates his Art and grants him a pension of six hundred pounds. After the death of Mansart in 1708, he participated with his brother Louis and Jouvenet in the painting project undertaken by Charles de la Fosse at the Hôtel des Invalides. He also worked in the palace and chapel of Versailles and at the Trianon. Excelling in color, Bon Boullogne draws as well as he composes. Extremely hardworking, he often and a lot paints during the day but also before and after the day, by the light of a lamp attached to his hat. He usually draws on gray paper, with black chalk heightened with white. This painter had a cheerful character, he loved and protected his students, and remained all his life tenderly attached to his brother Louis de Boulogne with whom he lived under the same roof until his marriage to Anne Lourdet, daughter of the director of the Savonnerie factory, April 8, 1687.
