Two XVIIIth century French paintings for museums in Normandy

1. Pierre Dulin (1669-1748)
The Annunciation
Oil on canvas - 73.5 x 44 cm
Evreux, Musée
Photo: Musée d’Evreux

December 28, 2007 — Acquisitions — Evreux, Musée and Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts — The Musée d’Evreux has once again surprised us with a first : after organizing a major exhibition with The School of Philippe de Champaigne (see review, coming soon), this establishment has recently purchased an old painting for the first time in a very long while.
The Annunciation is by the painter Pierre Dulin, undoubtedly his best-known composition, engraved by Jean Audran (ill. 2) and for which another version, slightly different from the print and from the work acquired by Evreux, is at the Musée des Beaux-Arts d’Arras (ill. 3).

2. Jean Audran (1667-1756), after
Pierre Dulin
The Annunciation
Engraving
Paris, BnF

3. Pierre Dulin (1669-1748)
The Annunciation
Oil on canvas - 72.3 x 45.5 cm
Arras, Musée des Beaux-Arts

Having received the Grand Prix de l’Académie twice in a row, in 1696 and 1697, Pierre Dulin lived in Rome from 1700 to 1704. His classical style, strongly influenced by his master Bon Boullogne, is turned towards XVIIth century painting, notably the Bolognese. The Department of Graphic Arts at the Louvre owns almost sixty of his drawings. His reception piece for the Académie in 1707, Laomedon Punished by Apollo and Neptune has been deposited by the Louvre at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts. It has also provided a cartoon (Paris, Musée de l’Armée) for The Construction of the Hôtel des Invalides, one of the pieces for the tapestry set L’Histoire du Roi while the château de Versailles owns a very beautiful Saint Claudius Resuscitating a Child (1737) by Dulin.

4. Etienne Jeaurat (1699-1789)
The Wedding of Daphnis and Chloé, 1737
Oil on canvas - 41 x 81 cm
Caen, Musée des Beaux-Arts
Photo: Breton / Blondeau

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Caen has a rich collection of XVIIIth century French studies and wishes to enlarge its holdings. Last year it acquired a painting by Etienne Jeaurat representing The Wedding of Daphnis and Chloe (ill. 4).
The artist, before devoting himself almost exclusively starting in the 1750’s to the genre scenes for which he is celebrated today, spent over twenty years painting historical compositions of varying quality. This charming study, where one glimpses a reference to Subleyras’s Christ at Supper with Simon, in a more profane and rococo style, is a preparatory modello for a tapestry cartoon for the Manufacture des Gobelins. The final work is part of a six piece tapestry group narrating the story of Daphnis and Chloe according to the novel of antiquity by Longus, woven between 1738 and 1741 under the guidance of Michel Audran. The large cartoon was displayed at the Salon de 1737. This study has been a familiar figure on the Parisian art market for quite some time: it appeared in the exhibition catalogue Leurs esquisses at the Joseph Hahn Gallery in 1975 (n° 18, with an attribution, understandable at the time, to Charles-Joseph Natoire).