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Lot Essay
Born in Brussels, Philippe de Champaigne arrived in Paris in 1621. Together with the young Poussin, he worked for Marie de'Medici at the Luxembourg Palace, eventually becoming her official painter. Champaigne was patronized extensively by both church and court and was granted lodgings in the palace. He curried favor with Louis XIII, for whom he painted a portrait (1628; Louvre) showing the king crowned by Victory at the Siege of La Rochelle. He also worked extensively for Richelieu, and made the celebrated full-length portrait of the Cardinal (c.1635/40; National Gallery, London).
On three occasions, Champaigne was commissioned to paint the official group portrait of the aldermen of Paris, portraits traditionally ordered every two years when a new provost was elected. The present, superb portrait of a man--its surface beautifully polished, its portrayal conceived with all of the insight into the sitter's character and psychology for which Philippe de Champaigne is revered--is a splendid survivor of the ruthless depredations suffered by many of the most important civic and church commissions undertaken during the ancien régime. It is certainly a fragment--one of several--from one of two lost group portraits by Champaigne of the Paris City Council executed in the 1650s. Originally housed in the Hôtel de Ville, the paintings were removed during the French Revolution and vandalized, with only a few fragments salvaged and repurposed, as is the case with the present portrait.
The Toledo portrait represents one of the échevins, or aldermen, of the city of Paris. These group portraits were commissioned by the magistrates to commemorate their tenure in office and were permanently displayed in the city hall. This series of memorials dates from the middle of the 16th century onwards, the first of them by Frans Pourbus the Younger, with a new painting added to honor the term of each prévôt des marchands (mayor), and following a fairly strict compositional protocol: portraits of the eight members of the council were arranged with the prévôt des marchands, procuruer, greffier and receveur on the left and the four échevins kneeling on the right, on either side of an altar or royal figure. From the pose of our sitter, he would clearly have been on the right side of this large composition and, therefore, could only have been an échevin. The échevins appear to have been positioned according to seniority, and circumstantial evidence suggests that our councilman would have been third or fourth in the line. Another portrait of an unidentified échevin by Champaigne, painted against the same marble architectural background and undoubtedly cut from the same canvas, is in the Wallace Collection, London. John Ingamells, in an ingenious bit of detective work, noticed after a cleaning of the Wallace canvas that traces of the back of another figure on the left and the elbow of another on the right were revealed. Using scaled photographs of the surviving fragments stripped of their additions, Ingamells proved that the elbow on the right-side of the Wallace alderman belongs, in fact, to the Toledo échevin, who would originally have kneeled beside him. The entire head, torso and both hands of the Toledo painting are intact and by Champaigne; indeed, the figure is surprisingly well preserved. Later canvas additions on the left and right restored the lost elbow and completed the sitter's left arm and folds of drapery, and a small addition at the top restores the space above his head.
The City Council commissioned from Champaigne group portraits in the years 1649, 1652 and 1656; only the first--commemorating the prévôté of M. le Féron--survives intact and is in the Louvre; the other two were destroyed. Tentative attempts to identify the sitters of the various fragments associated with the two vandalized paintings--another excised portrait is in a private collection in the United States; a second in a private collection in Geneva; a third perhaps was in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and was destroyed in the bombing of 1945--suggest that the Wallace and Toledo portraits are from the third and final of Champaigne's commissions, for the 1656 painting. If so, the Wallace sitter represents either Jean Rousseau, second échevin of the 1655/6 Council or Antoine de la Porte, the third échevin, while the Toledo sitter would be either Antoine de la Porte, or the fourth échevin in the 1655/6 Council, Claude de Santeuil.
(fig. 1) Philippe de Champaigne, An Échevin [Alderman] of Paris, 1656-1657, Wallace Collection, London. By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London Art Resource, NY.
On three occasions, Champaigne was commissioned to paint the official group portrait of the aldermen of Paris, portraits traditionally ordered every two years when a new provost was elected. The present, superb portrait of a man--its surface beautifully polished, its portrayal conceived with all of the insight into the sitter's character and psychology for which Philippe de Champaigne is revered--is a splendid survivor of the ruthless depredations suffered by many of the most important civic and church commissions undertaken during the ancien régime. It is certainly a fragment--one of several--from one of two lost group portraits by Champaigne of the Paris City Council executed in the 1650s. Originally housed in the Hôtel de Ville, the paintings were removed during the French Revolution and vandalized, with only a few fragments salvaged and repurposed, as is the case with the present portrait.
The Toledo portrait represents one of the échevins, or aldermen, of the city of Paris. These group portraits were commissioned by the magistrates to commemorate their tenure in office and were permanently displayed in the city hall. This series of memorials dates from the middle of the 16th century onwards, the first of them by Frans Pourbus the Younger, with a new painting added to honor the term of each prévôt des marchands (mayor), and following a fairly strict compositional protocol: portraits of the eight members of the council were arranged with the prévôt des marchands, procuruer, greffier and receveur on the left and the four échevins kneeling on the right, on either side of an altar or royal figure. From the pose of our sitter, he would clearly have been on the right side of this large composition and, therefore, could only have been an échevin. The échevins appear to have been positioned according to seniority, and circumstantial evidence suggests that our councilman would have been third or fourth in the line. Another portrait of an unidentified échevin by Champaigne, painted against the same marble architectural background and undoubtedly cut from the same canvas, is in the Wallace Collection, London. John Ingamells, in an ingenious bit of detective work, noticed after a cleaning of the Wallace canvas that traces of the back of another figure on the left and the elbow of another on the right were revealed. Using scaled photographs of the surviving fragments stripped of their additions, Ingamells proved that the elbow on the right-side of the Wallace alderman belongs, in fact, to the Toledo échevin, who would originally have kneeled beside him. The entire head, torso and both hands of the Toledo painting are intact and by Champaigne; indeed, the figure is surprisingly well preserved. Later canvas additions on the left and right restored the lost elbow and completed the sitter's left arm and folds of drapery, and a small addition at the top restores the space above his head.
The City Council commissioned from Champaigne group portraits in the years 1649, 1652 and 1656; only the first--commemorating the prévôté of M. le Féron--survives intact and is in the Louvre; the other two were destroyed. Tentative attempts to identify the sitters of the various fragments associated with the two vandalized paintings--another excised portrait is in a private collection in the United States; a second in a private collection in Geneva; a third perhaps was in the Kaiser-Friedrich Museum, Berlin, and was destroyed in the bombing of 1945--suggest that the Wallace and Toledo portraits are from the third and final of Champaigne's commissions, for the 1656 painting. If so, the Wallace sitter represents either Jean Rousseau, second échevin of the 1655/6 Council or Antoine de la Porte, the third échevin, while the Toledo sitter would be either Antoine de la Porte, or the fourth échevin in the 1655/6 Council, Claude de Santeuil.
(fig. 1) Philippe de Champaigne, An Échevin [Alderman] of Paris, 1656-1657, Wallace Collection, London. By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London Art Resource, NY.