XIII - Paintings and Drawings - Marty de Cambiaire

accompanied by two pageboys and a small dog. If we
trust the iconographic convention established by Bede the
Venerable, the figures are Balthazar, the African Magus “of
black complexion”, and Caspar, the youngest of the three
Magi, “beardless” and “ruddy”, that is, possessing physical
features of an Asian man, although this is not the case in
the present drawing. Melchior, the “hoary-headed old man
with a long beard”, bending towards Herod in the painting,
is not present here. There are some differences between
the preparatory drawing and the final painting, such as the
additional pageboy and the dog’s pose. Besides, Sebastiano
Conca replicated the same three figures almost identically,
albeit in different poses, in a painting representing The
Adoration of the Magi, today in the Palazzo Corsini. Dating to
the beginning of his career, the present fine study in red chalk
still shows strong influence of Carlo Maratta, particularly
in the physical appearance of the young king Caspar. But it
already reveals the artist’s decorative skill, his talent for an
attractive draughtsmanship and probably the interest that he
took at the time in Veronese’s painting which he could have
seen through engravings. To date, the present drawing is the
only known study for the painting.
1 “His works can be seen in many private galleries and
residences of many gentlemen in Rome, and many have
been taken abroad, largely to the countries of the North
and, above all, to England.”
Charles-Antoine Coypel
Paris 1694 – 1752
Allegory of Spring or Scent
Pastel on blue paper, oval
520 x 435 cm (20 1 /2 x 17 1 /8 in.)
Provenance
Possibly in the sale of 25 November 1782, Paris, lot 211,
bought by François Langlier; Count de La Rivière collection,
according to an armoured label on the back of the mount
numbered 107 (likely François Charles Alexandre de
La Rivière 1739-1794); private collection, France.
“If we often omit to mention him among the main pastellists
of the 18 th century, it is because the trace of many of his
pastels has been lost,” 1 wrote Paul Ratouis de Limay in 1946
about Charles Coypel. Since then, regular reappearance of his
pastels, some very ambitious, has reinforced the opinion of
the art historian specialising in French pastels. Many portraits,
but also allegorical, mythological and historical scenes, as
well as landscapes, demonstrate Charles Coypel’s predilection
for this brilliant technique, more rapid than oil and more
pictorial than trois crayons. Initiated to pastel by his father,
Charles Coypel is likely to have perfected his skills under the
influence of his friend Rosalba Carriera in Paris in 1720-21. A
Pierre Crozat’s letter tells us about the admiration expressed
by the artist in front of her Girl in Half-Length Clutching a
Dove to her Chest which the Venetian painter sent to the count
of Morville in the beginning of 1728. A copy of this work
is listed in Charles Coypel’s posthumous inventory 2 . Pastel
technique allows Charles Coypel to increase the precision of
his draughtsmanship through the subtlety of colours and the
softness of texture that characterise his oil painting.
This beautiful unpublished Allegory of Spring or Scent comes
in addition to the increasing list of the artist’s works executed
in this technique. The attribution presents no problem: the
regular oval of the face formed by the ample and symmetrical
curves of the eyebrows and lips, perfectly almond-shaped
eyes, and the direct look are all characteristic of Coypel’s
style. However, the identification of the subject and the
study of the provenance raise some questions which for
the moment can only be answered incompletely. The same
composition, albeit with minor differences, can be found
in a small oval drawing, heightened with pastel and signed
by Coypel and appeared on sale as Spring with its pendant
Winter (Fig. 1 and 2) 3 , which proves that Coypel envisaged
it as the allegory of one of the seasons. The repeated use of
Winter in a series of the Four Seasons engraved by Simon-
François Ravenet after Coyel brings further confirmation of
it (Fig. 3-6).
Moreover, the posthumous sale of the brother of the artist
Philippe Coypel listed “four paintings of great merit: they
represent the four seasons. Winter: a woman holding
a muff; Spring: a woman coifed with flowers; Summer:
a woman bathing & Autumn, two children lean forward
reaching out for grapes. These four pieces painted by the
same hand are of a very agreeable composition, and of a
colour as vigorous as oil.” The catalogue of the sale states
that these compositions measure 23 by 18 in., which is
approximately 62 x 48 cm.
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