Old master paintings for sale at Sotheby’s Paris

18/6/24 - Art Market - Paris, Sotheby’s - After putting his wife and children on a cart, the plebeian Lucius Albinus left as quickly as possible. The year was 390 BC, when Rome was sacked by the Gauls. As he fled, he passed a group of vestal virgins who were also trying to escape from the enemy, forced to advance on foot and with their arms laden with all the sacred objects they could carry. So Lucius Albinus made his family get off the cart to make way for the vestal virgins and lead them to safety, thus sacrificing his own. This example of piety was recounted by Titus Livius in his History of Rome from its Foundation.

1. Sébastien Bourdon (1616-1671)
Lucius Albinus Offering his Carriage to the Vestals during the Sack of Rome in 390 BC
Oil on canvas - 106 x 136.2 cm
Sotheby’s sale, Paris on 19 June 2024
Photo: bbsg

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The subject inspired several painters at different times, such as the painter from Liège Bertholet Flémalle and Jean Bardin. Sébastien Bourdon also painted this exemplum virtutis in a picture offered for sale by Sotheby’s on 19 June in Paris (ill. 1), a preparatory sketch of which is kept at the Pavlovsk Palace. Produced at the beginning of his career and distributed by engraving, this work is one of the few to be cited by Félibien in his Entretiens: "one of the most agreeable paintings he did in his early years". The artist was already demonstrating his art of staging: the figures are skilfully arranged on several levels, as in Auguste au tombeau d’Alexandre in the Louvre. In the background are two monuments, the Pantheon and the Pyramid of Cestius, which are not actually side by side and which the artist had admired during his stay in Rome in 1635-1636.

2. Bon Boullogne (1649-1717)
The Mystical Marriage of Saint Catherine
Oil on canvas - 41 x 34.5 cm
Sotheby’s sale, Paris on 19 June 2024
Photo: bbsg

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As a transition between the 17th and 18th centuries…