An allegory of Public Faith

Born in Paris, the son of a minor painter, La Hyre received his initial training from his father. He studied the celebrated fresco decorations of the château de Fontainebleau and worked for a time in the studio of the mannerist painter Georges Lallemand, soon receiving his first important church commissions in 1630. From 1635-37, La Hyre executed two Mays for Nôtre-Dame and attracted the attention of Cardinal Richelieu, who commissioned three paintings from the young artist and became his protector. While La Hyre’s early style is indebted to the mannerism of Fontainebleau and Lallemand, by the early 1640s his works became more classicizing, displaying the soft atmospheric light of Claude and the incisive drawing of Poussin. When the Académie Royale was launched in 1648, La Hyre was among the twelve founding professors and he remained an active member until his death in 1656. In his maturity, he principally painted multi-figural religious compositions, allegories and, in his final years, luminous and serene landscapes.

In the present allegorical painting, two women – one seated, one standing, both situated in front of an ancient temple – engage in a discussion around a marble pedestal upon which they lean. Like the setting, the women’s graceful figures, determined expressions and elegant robes lend dignity and solemnity to the depiction of personifications of a basic principle of good government, made clear by the epigraph carved into the base of the plinth: ‘Basis Firma Fedes’ (‘A Firm Basis of Faith’). As Jennifer Montague first recognized (quoted in J. Richardson, loc. cit.), the female figures correspond to the emblems of ‘Fidelity’ and ‘Security’ in Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia, the influential emblem manual whose second edition (1603) was published with woodcut illustrations personifying each allegorical concept (the first French edition appeared in 1636). As in Ripa, La Hyre represents the standing figure of Fidelity carrying a key and a seal, while the seated Security rests her elbow firmly on the plinth (‘Faith’) and holds a lance in her right hand. As Rosenberg and Thuillier observed (op. cit.), the union of these two figures refers to ‘Public Trust’, which is a fundamental basis of the State, since only confidence in government and its institutions can assure a sense of trust and security. Civil war and the disorder created by the Fronde, the insubordination of the Parlement, and recent treasonous acts by members of the French nobility had raised wide-spread concerns about public morality and the security of the State, and gave ample cause for reflection on these themes.

While serious in intent and noble in its severe and classical composition, La Hyre’s painting is also imbued with a lyrical beauty that the artist rarely neglected. The exquisite profile of Fidelity, as if copied from the face of a Roman coin; the crisp – almost chiseled – drapery of the figures, reminiscent of the carving of a Hellenistic statue; the meticulous rendering of aged brick and marble, with its mossy overgrowth and time-stained washes of color; and the deep, luminous landscape which gently recedes to a distant, hazy horizon, are all characteristic of the elegant and sophisticated manner with which La Hyre softened and refined the stoic severity of Poussin’s rigor. A shimmering, translucent atmosphere unifies the painting’s strong palette of yellows, earthy greens and browns, with the iridescence of the figures’ deep blue, violet and ochre draperies.

Rosenberg and Thuillier date the painting to the beginning of the 1650s and presume that it formed part of one of a number of large projects of room décor, yet to be identified, that La Hyre is known to have participated in during this period. A small preparatory drawing for the composition in brush and blue-gray wash was sold at Sotheby’s Paris, 22 March 2018, lot 23 (fig. 1); it was paired with another small sketch representing an allegory of ‘Concord’.