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Lot Essay
Executed in 1673, towards the end of the artist's career, this imposing panel showing Apollo and the Muses by Pierre Patel is a fine example of the work that secured the artist's reputation as the leading landscape painter active in France in the seventeenth century. The picture was in the collection of Richard Payne Knight, the legendary connoisseur, antiquarian and one of the foremost English aesthetes of his generation. Originally conceived as a harpsichord lid, the picture was subsequently adapted to its current format, either by the artist himself or shortly after his death. The subject, a celebration of the various arts and the theme of Mount Parnassus, where Apollo and his inspired companions congregated, had been popular among artists and erudite patrons since Raphael’s celebrated version of the theme in the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican. It is possible that this is the harpsichord lid recorded in Patel's posthumous inventory depicting Mount Parnassus and valued at six hundred livres, a very significant sum for the time.
Although included in her 2001 catalogue under rejected works (op. cit.), Natalie Coural, to whom we are grateful, has since confirmed the attribution to Patel on the basis of images. She compares it with the small copper showing the Flight into Egypt, a work also dated 1673 and now in the Louvre, Paris. She further notes the possible assistance in this grand-scale panel from the artist's son, Pierre-Antoine Patel (1648-1707). Alastair Laing, to whom we are also grateful, considers the picture (on the basis of images) to be by Pierre-Antoine.
Although Patel never travelled to Italy, he would have undoubtedly been acquainted with the work of Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). Patel would have seen the pictures by Claude being imported back to Paris from Rome in the mid-17th Century. There are evident similarities between their two styles; both men possessed a talent for light, airy compositions, elevated by the inclusion of classical motifs. Patel developed his own rigorously classical idiom and became an important model for landscape artists in the early nineteenth century.
A note on the provenance:
Born in 1750, Richard Payne Knight was the eldest son of the Reverend Thomas Knight (1697-1764) of Wormesley Grange, Hertfordshire, and his wife, Ursula Nash. As a young man Knight travelled widely in Italy and spent much time in Naples, where his friend, the celebrated antiquarian and collector, Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), was British Envoy. Knight became, upon his return to England, a keen Classics scholar and a leading authority on ancient art. He served as a prominent member of the Society of Dilettanti and was a keen collector. Knight bequeathed to the British Museum a magnificent collection of antique coins, medals and bronzes, and a vast ensemble of 1,144 Old Master drawings, which transformed the museum’s holdings. Less well-known was the heterogeneous group of paintings he amassed at his estate of Downton, Shropshire, which included works of remarkable quality and variety, notably Rembrandt’s Saint Bartholomew (Los Angeles, Getty Museum), Mantegna’s Adoration of the Shepherds and Claude’s La Crescenza (both New York, The Metropolitan Museum).
Knight’s collection might best be appreciated in the context of his role as a leading exponent of the Picturesque movement in country house architecture and landscaping. Following picturesque principles, at Downton, Knight oversaw the construction in 1773-4 of a castle with an asymmetrical plan. His design of surrounding gardens was inspired by the work of Claude, Gaspard Dughet and the great Dutch masters Hobbema and Ruisdael. Knight was twice painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, R.A. (1769-1830). The earlier portrait of 1794 (fig.1) shows Knight with scholarly attributes: a volume of engravings upon his knees and a bronze urn at his side. Knight presented Lawrence's later bust-length portrait of 1805 to the Society of Dilettanti.
Although included in her 2001 catalogue under rejected works (op. cit.), Natalie Coural, to whom we are grateful, has since confirmed the attribution to Patel on the basis of images. She compares it with the small copper showing the Flight into Egypt, a work also dated 1673 and now in the Louvre, Paris. She further notes the possible assistance in this grand-scale panel from the artist's son, Pierre-Antoine Patel (1648-1707). Alastair Laing, to whom we are also grateful, considers the picture (on the basis of images) to be by Pierre-Antoine.
Although Patel never travelled to Italy, he would have undoubtedly been acquainted with the work of Claude Lorrain (1600-1682). Patel would have seen the pictures by Claude being imported back to Paris from Rome in the mid-17th Century. There are evident similarities between their two styles; both men possessed a talent for light, airy compositions, elevated by the inclusion of classical motifs. Patel developed his own rigorously classical idiom and became an important model for landscape artists in the early nineteenth century.
A note on the provenance:
Born in 1750, Richard Payne Knight was the eldest son of the Reverend Thomas Knight (1697-1764) of Wormesley Grange, Hertfordshire, and his wife, Ursula Nash. As a young man Knight travelled widely in Italy and spent much time in Naples, where his friend, the celebrated antiquarian and collector, Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), was British Envoy. Knight became, upon his return to England, a keen Classics scholar and a leading authority on ancient art. He served as a prominent member of the Society of Dilettanti and was a keen collector. Knight bequeathed to the British Museum a magnificent collection of antique coins, medals and bronzes, and a vast ensemble of 1,144 Old Master drawings, which transformed the museum’s holdings. Less well-known was the heterogeneous group of paintings he amassed at his estate of Downton, Shropshire, which included works of remarkable quality and variety, notably Rembrandt’s Saint Bartholomew (Los Angeles, Getty Museum), Mantegna’s Adoration of the Shepherds and Claude’s La Crescenza (both New York, The Metropolitan Museum).
Knight’s collection might best be appreciated in the context of his role as a leading exponent of the Picturesque movement in country house architecture and landscaping. Following picturesque principles, at Downton, Knight oversaw the construction in 1773-4 of a castle with an asymmetrical plan. His design of surrounding gardens was inspired by the work of Claude, Gaspard Dughet and the great Dutch masters Hobbema and Ruisdael. Knight was twice painted by Sir Thomas Lawrence, R.A. (1769-1830). The earlier portrait of 1794 (fig.1) shows Knight with scholarly attributes: a volume of engravings upon his knees and a bronze urn at his side. Knight presented Lawrence's later bust-length portrait of 1805 to the Society of Dilettanti.