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Lot Essay
Lépicié’s parents were both engravers, and his father was highly successful and prominent in his field. The young Lépicié trained to be a printmaker under his father’s tutelage before enrolling as a pupil of the History painter, Carle Vanloo. He eventually won the second prize in the Prix de Rome (although he never made the trip to Italy), was received into the Academy as a full member in 1769, and rapidly rose through its ranks to become a full professor in 1777. His success was due more to the influence of his father than his talents as a History painter, however, and despite receiving numerous prestigious commissions, the paintings he produced were largely uninspired exercises in the newly fashionable neoclassical manner of Vien. 'What inexplicable folly,’ asked the anonymous author of his obituary, 'made him seek grand commissions of historical subjects?'
Although he exhibited regularly, it was only with the Paris Salon of 1773 that Lépicié discovered his real métier: charming and often amusing genre paintings in the style of the 17th-century Dutch masters. His major entry in the exhibition that year was a huge painting of a subject from national history, St. Louis Dispensing Justice (now lost) that had been painted for the École Militaire, but the great successes of the Salon were two of his first endeavors in the field of genre painting: Le Lever de Fanchon (Musée de l’hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer), and the present painting. Le Lever de Fanchon, which depicts a maid getting out of bed while pulling on her stockings (fig. 1), was startling in its candid realism and remains Lépicié’s single most celebrated work.
The present painting, which is signed and dated ‘1772’, was exhibited under the title La politesse intéressée (‘Self-Interested Courtesy’). A young workman - perhaps a porter - sits on some quarried rocks in a rustic interior preparing to eat his lunch. Holding a paring knife in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other, the boy smiles down upon a small dog – which sports a surprisingly frilly pink-ribbon collar-- that sits upright, politely begging for a piece of food. Lépicié depicts the amusing scene with the greatest care: closely observing the textures of various fabrics, flesh and fur and the fall of gently filtered afternoon light with dazzling naturalism. Lépicié’s narrow palette of silver, mocha and chocolate brown is harmonious and especially elegant in its subtlety, a palette that made his works popular with late 18th-century French collectors drawn to the fashionable ‘goût hollandais’. The painting inspired critics to compare Lépicié to David Teniers (1610-1690), but it shares as much with the rustic genre interiors of Greuze and Chardin as with the ‘petites maîtres’ of the north; indeed, the artist was particularly attracted to the genre scenes of Chardin, whose works he knew intimately since his father had been Chardin’s favorite engraver.
Lépicié’s embrace of genre painting earned him a critical enthusiasm he had not previously enjoyed. In his review of the 1773 Salon, Bachaumont praised the present picture unreservedly: 'This painting bolsters Lépicié’s reputation more than do his History paintings. It is natural. One might say that in the painting entitled La politesse intéressée he has aimed at being epigrammatic; it depicts a dog that is bowing courteously in order to get some of the bread his master is holding. The latter is a rustic figure, a porter who through good sense lacks a rascally girlfriend. For the rest, the painting is done in pleasing colors.' La politesse intéressée also invited the first comparison of Lépicié’s work to that of northern painters of the previous century from the anonymous critic for L’Avant-coureur who, in his Salon review wrote, 'One takes pleasure in noting in this picture, as in several others by the same artist, those truths of Nature so well expressed that are so valued in Flemish painting.'
After his success in the 1773 Salon, Lépicié gradually abandoned History painting almost entirely in favor of genre painting. Without resorting to moralizing, his warm-hearted and often gentle depictions of peasants, workers, and other rustic or ‘popular’ types were in keeping with the ideas of Rousseau and the more advanced philosophical trends of the day, but also, apparently, reflected his personal character. Pious and modest, the artist gave generously to the poor and, in his later years, took to dressing in monk’s robes.
The ornate frame bears the title 'Bassesses de Zizi' (‘The Servility of Zizi’), a title which names the dog and may allude to a play or popular story. This title is certainly of later vintage as it does not appear in the Salon livret or contemporary reviews.
Although he exhibited regularly, it was only with the Paris Salon of 1773 that Lépicié discovered his real métier: charming and often amusing genre paintings in the style of the 17th-century Dutch masters. His major entry in the exhibition that year was a huge painting of a subject from national history, St. Louis Dispensing Justice (now lost) that had been painted for the École Militaire, but the great successes of the Salon were two of his first endeavors in the field of genre painting: Le Lever de Fanchon (Musée de l’hôtel Sandelin, Saint-Omer), and the present painting. Le Lever de Fanchon, which depicts a maid getting out of bed while pulling on her stockings (fig. 1), was startling in its candid realism and remains Lépicié’s single most celebrated work.
The present painting, which is signed and dated ‘1772’, was exhibited under the title La politesse intéressée (‘Self-Interested Courtesy’). A young workman - perhaps a porter - sits on some quarried rocks in a rustic interior preparing to eat his lunch. Holding a paring knife in one hand and a loaf of bread in the other, the boy smiles down upon a small dog – which sports a surprisingly frilly pink-ribbon collar-- that sits upright, politely begging for a piece of food. Lépicié depicts the amusing scene with the greatest care: closely observing the textures of various fabrics, flesh and fur and the fall of gently filtered afternoon light with dazzling naturalism. Lépicié’s narrow palette of silver, mocha and chocolate brown is harmonious and especially elegant in its subtlety, a palette that made his works popular with late 18th-century French collectors drawn to the fashionable ‘goût hollandais’. The painting inspired critics to compare Lépicié to David Teniers (1610-1690), but it shares as much with the rustic genre interiors of Greuze and Chardin as with the ‘petites maîtres’ of the north; indeed, the artist was particularly attracted to the genre scenes of Chardin, whose works he knew intimately since his father had been Chardin’s favorite engraver.
Lépicié’s embrace of genre painting earned him a critical enthusiasm he had not previously enjoyed. In his review of the 1773 Salon, Bachaumont praised the present picture unreservedly: 'This painting bolsters Lépicié’s reputation more than do his History paintings. It is natural. One might say that in the painting entitled La politesse intéressée he has aimed at being epigrammatic; it depicts a dog that is bowing courteously in order to get some of the bread his master is holding. The latter is a rustic figure, a porter who through good sense lacks a rascally girlfriend. For the rest, the painting is done in pleasing colors.' La politesse intéressée also invited the first comparison of Lépicié’s work to that of northern painters of the previous century from the anonymous critic for L’Avant-coureur who, in his Salon review wrote, 'One takes pleasure in noting in this picture, as in several others by the same artist, those truths of Nature so well expressed that are so valued in Flemish painting.'
After his success in the 1773 Salon, Lépicié gradually abandoned History painting almost entirely in favor of genre painting. Without resorting to moralizing, his warm-hearted and often gentle depictions of peasants, workers, and other rustic or ‘popular’ types were in keeping with the ideas of Rousseau and the more advanced philosophical trends of the day, but also, apparently, reflected his personal character. Pious and modest, the artist gave generously to the poor and, in his later years, took to dressing in monk’s robes.
The ornate frame bears the title 'Bassesses de Zizi' (‘The Servility of Zizi’), a title which names the dog and may allude to a play or popular story. This title is certainly of later vintage as it does not appear in the Salon livret or contemporary reviews.