A Portrait of a Capitoul by Jean Chalette for the Musée du Grand Siècle

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25/4/23 - Acquisition - Saint-Cloud, Musée du Grand Siècle - Between 1295 and 1787, the municipality of Toulouse, directed by the Capitouls (equivalent to the échevins and consuls) elected annually, enriched a large book of the city which included, among other things, in miniature, the portraits of the eight elected officials and sometimes religious scenes. After a dismemberment, a first book containing the years up to 1532 was created, then eleven additional books were constituted, known as "Annales manuscrites des Capitouls de Toulouse". Unfortunately, the Revolution led to an auto-da-fé which caused the disappearance of a large number of these small paintings, of which only 75 are preserved today, some of them in the Toulouse Archives (they are now digitised).


Jean Chalette (1581-1643)
Portrait of François de Sabateri
Oil on canvas - 111 x 98 cm
Saint-Cloud, Museum of the Grand Siècle
Photo: Millon
See the image in its page

Jean Chalette, a painter born and trained in Troyes, who then travelled to Italy before passing through Aix-en-Provence, settled in Toulouse where, having painted the Annales of 1610-1611 and 1611-1612, he was appointed painter to the capitouls. In 1615-1616, he introduced a new feature to these small portraits, executing them in oil rather than watercolour [1] Only one half of this painting, showing four capitouls, is preserved in the Musée des Augustins.
But the artist was not content with small portraits, and neither were the capitouls, who also wanted biggest paintings. To these works, he added collective portraits and individual portraits in oil on canvas, many of which have been lost but others are still preserved. It is one of these that was on sale at Millon last Friday, 21 April, and which the Musée du Grand Siècle wisely preempted for the very reasonable sum of €4,800 (without expenses).

It concerns a lawyer, François de Sabatéry, lord of Roquerlan and Crépiac, who became capitoul in 1627. The work is ostensibly dated to that year. The painting displays the characteristics of Jean Chalette’s style: the influence of François Pourbus, whom he probably met in Italy, a certain rigidity in the pose that shows the artist’s limitations - even though the work is of undeniable quality - but also a subdued Caravaggio character that he certainly also brought back from his stay overseas.

This painting fits perfectly into the museum’s programme, which seeks to show French 17th-century art in all its aspects. It is both a portrait of a local notable and a testimony to painting outside Paris. Even if the provincial schools are less developed than in Italy (and obviously of lesser quality), their production is a field that the collections should represent. It is to be hoped that in the future these collections will be enriched, for example, with works by Burgundians such as Philippe Quantin (there are already seven paintings by Jean Tassel and two by this latter’s studio), Normans such as René Dudot (there is already a painting by Adrien Sacquespée), or other Toulouse artists such as Hilaire Pader (the Pierre Rosenberg collection donated to the museum already has an Ambroise Frédeau).

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