5/4/23 -Acquisitions - Langres, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire and Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot - The Langres museums exercised their right of preemption on two occasions during the sale of old master drawings offered by the SVV Ader at Drouot on 20 March. The two sheets, acquired for 1536 euros (including fees) each, were respectively for the town’s Museum of Art and History (ill. 1 and 2) and for the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot (ill. 3).
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- 1. Jacques Prévost (ca. 1505-ca. 1580)
Jean d’Amoncourt and Claude de Longwy, Cardinal de Givry
holding a cartouche bearing the name Prévost, between 1551 and 1559
Pen and brown ink - 12.8 x 16.4 cm
Langres, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
The first preempted drawing (ill. 1) joins the already preserved corpus of works attached to the artists and illustrious people of Langre in the collections of the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire. Executed in pen on the verso of an incomplete handwritten letter, the drawing shows two figures that annotations designate as being great prelates of the Renaissance: on the left, Jean d’Amoncourt (c. 1500-1559), priest, grand archdeacon and then vicar general of the bishop of Langres before becoming bishop of Poitiers from 1551, and, on the right, Claude de Longwy, cardinal of Givry, bishop of Langres from 1529 to 1561, appointed cardinal in 1533. As the museum’s notice states [1], the mention of their respective titles - subject to the contemporaneity of the annotations and of the drawing itself - makes it possible to date the drawing fairly precisely between 1551, the date of Jean d’Amoncourt’s appointment to the office of Poitiers (after the Cardinal of Longwy renounced it in 1550) and 1559, the date of his death. The two figures frame a cartouche decorated with mascarons and cut-out leathers, in the centre of which is inscribed the name Prevost in capital letters. This identifies the author of the drawing, Jacques Prévost, an important artist who worked for the diocese of Langres and who is known to have received commissions from the two prelates. In addition to the hand that they place on the cartouche, the threads that attach them to the cartouche seem to symbolise the strong bond between them and the artist. This link is partly explained by the letter from Jacques Prévost on the reverse of the drawing (ill. 2).
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- 2. Jacques Prévost (c. 1505-c. 1580)
Handwritten letter on the reverse of the drawing
Jean d’Amoncourt and Claude de Longwy, Cardinal de Givry
holding a cartouche with the name Prévost, between 1551 and 1559
Pen and brown ink - 12.8 x 16.4 cm
Langres, Musée d’Art et d’Histoire
Photo: Ader - See the image in its page
In this letter, of which it is attested - by its first known reproduction in Le Magasin pittoresque in 1857 [2] - It was initially associated on the same sheet with another letter on the verso of which appeared a representation of the Monde à l’envers bearing Jacques Prévost’s signature and the mention "Ainsi va le monde", the artist mentions very highly the Cardinal de Givry in whose palace he was then staying, a palace - now destroyed - which he seems to have decorated. The two drawings that appeared on the upper and lower parts of the same sheet were probably separated in the second half of the 19th century. For further details on the biographies of Prévost and the two prelates and their important artistic roles, we refer to the excellent catalogue of the exhibition Langres à la Renaissance which was presented at the Musée d’Art et d’Histoire in 2018[[Under the direction of Olivier Caumont, Langres à la Renaissance : Stéphanie Deprouw-Augustin, "Jacques Prévost (ca. 1505-ca. 1580)", pp. 222-223; Georges Viard, "Claude de Longwy, cardinal de Givry (1481-1561)", p. 48-49; Georges Viard, "Jean d’Amoncourt (circa 1550-1559)", p. 50] (see article).
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- 3. Pierre-Alexandre Wille (1748-1821)
Portrait of a Woman of Quality, 1777
Red chalk - 26.2 x 20 cm
Langes, Maison des Lumièes
Photo: Ader
Photo : Ader - See the image in its page
The second preempted drawing (ill. 3) was all for the Maison des Lumières Denis Diderot, as it is related to a painting by Pierre-Alexandre Wille (ill. 4) that recently entered its collections after it was acquired from the Talabardon & Gautier gallery (see new item of 3/1/20). This Portrait of a woman in red chalk, signed and dated lower right "P.A. Wille del 1777", features one of the female characters of the large assembly represented in the large canvas of The Feast of Good People or the Reward of Wisdom and Virtue. The precious date on the sheet indicates that this is not a preparatory drawing but a ricordo, a drawing made from the painting, the canvas exhibited at the 1777 Salon being signed and dated 1776. The artist has redrawn the figure of the seated woman wearing a pink dress and holding a blue ribbon in the centre of the group of aristocrats on the left of the composition. The very accomplished drawing does not omit any details of the sophisticated dress or hairstyle.
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- 4. Pierre-Alexandre Wille (1748-1821)
The Feast of Good People or the Reward of Wisdom and Virtue, 1776
Oil on canvas - 102.3 x 129.9 cm
Langres, Maison des Lumières
Photo: Galerie Talabardon & Gautier/G. Benoît - See the image in its page
As Olivier Caumont points out, other drawings related to this composition are known, notably a sanguine kept in a private collection of the second female figure seated next to the woman in pink. Dressed in a yellow dress, this woman has been identified as Anne-Louise Morin-Dumesnil, the wife of Jean-Baptiste Élie de Beaumont, the lord of the château de Canon, in Normandy, who initiated the "fête des bonnes gens", a ceremony to award prizes to deserving peasants which actually took place in Canon in 1775. These drawings, made by the artist after the painting, were probably intended to help spread the word about the painting.