A Dorigny for the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature

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6/4/23 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature - For too long in the shadow of Simon Vouet, Michel Dorigny has for some years now found a place of honour on the walls of museums and galleries alike: this is how we began our review of the 2010 edition of the Tefaf in Maastricht with an ambitious Hunt of Diana on the stand of the Dickinson Gallery (see article). This year, it was a new painting (ill. 1) by the artist that made its mark at the opening of the fair (see article), especially as it was rumoured that it had just been reserved by a French museum!


1. Michel Dorigny (1616-1665)
Diana the Huntress, c. 1650-1655
Oil on canvas - 71 x 88 cm
Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Photo : Galerie Didier Aaron
See the image in its page

Much admired by all the visitors to the Didier Aaron gallery stand, this Diana the Huntress had indeed been immediately spotted by the managers of the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, who proposed its acquisition to the Fondation François Sommer. We can only salute the responsiveness of the latter, which allowed the operation to be rapidly completed without going through a thousand and one administrative commissions. As a private museum, but a "Musée de France", it benefits from an enviable flexibility in the French cultural landscape. This attractive painting, with its fresh and vivid colours, is indeed a great prize for the institution, where we are looking forward to admiring it soon. The painting made its appearance in Villefranche-sur-Saône in September 2022, at a public sale where only the subject was obviously identified. Initially described as "18th century French school" and with a derisory estimate, this Diana the Huntress was promptly withdrawn from the catalogue and entrusted to the Cabinet Turquin for appraisal, many connoisseurs having recognised its quality. Returned to Michel Dorigny, attribution confirmed by the artist’s young specialist, Damien Tellas, the painting was again offered in December with an estimate that was still attractive and therefore logically exceeded.


1. Michel Dorigny (1616-1665)
Diana the Huntress (detail), c. 1650-1655
Oil on canvas - 71 x 88 cm
Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Photo: Alexandre Lafore
See the image in its page

Judiciously acquired by the Didier Aaron gallery, the composition was separated from the ugly frame that encircled it at the time of its sale and entrusted to the good care of restorer Isabelle Leegenhoek, who was able to restore it to its full panache. Although there was no doubt about the work’s interest beforehand, the operation was no less necessary - the overpainting was extensive - to restore the face of the goddess to its full freshness (ill. 2). Seen from three quarters and halfway up, Diana is posed in a green frame bathed in light and observes the viewer while stroking a beautiful spaniel. As the gallery notes, the pink strap of her quiver enhances her porcelain complexion, while her beautiful blue drapery is almost a signature for the artist. One is irresistibly reminded of the splendid Suzanne now housed in Rennes as well as of the female figures in the two famous paintings in the Petit Palais, Diana and Actaeon or Diana Discovering Callisto’s Pregnancy which formed a cycle to which the painting admired at Dickinson in 2010 and more recently at Stair Sainty also belongs.

3. Henri Pierre Danloux (1753-1809)
Portrait de William Burlton Bennett en chasseur, 1802
Huile sur toile - 75,5 x 63
Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature
Photo : Galerie Didier Aaron
See the image in its page

Decidedly a regular supplier to the Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, the Didier Aaron gallery had already sold to the institution a first cinegetic effigy ten years ago: now one of the most amiable faces in the collections divided between the hôtels de Guénégaud and Mongelas, the young William Burlton Bennett painted by Henri Pierre Danloux had never before been reproduced in La Tribune de l’Art! This elegant aristocratic portrait (ill. 3), which shares the same pale and fresh complexion with Dorigny’s Diane chasseresse, is one of the most beautiful recent purchases of this museum, which is very active on the market, both in galleries and in public sales: we remember the marvellous portrait of a hunter by Jean Daret and Nicasius Bernaerts, preempted in January 2021 at the Hôtel Drouot and which could not have found a better destination than in the Marais (see the news item of 29/1/21). If Jean Daret will soon benefit from a much awaited exhibition, let’s hope for the same fate for Michel Dorigny, to whom the monograph prepared by. Damien Tellas should not fail to do justice at last [1].

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