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Charles-Antoine Coypel (French, 1694-1752)
Unpublished corpu…
See original version (French)
215
-
Charles-Antoine Coypel (French, 1694-1752)
Unpublished corpu…
See original version (French)
Estimate €15,000 - €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Charles-Antoine Coypel (French, 1694-1752)
Unpublished corpus of theatrical works, c. 1719-1752
Seven in-4 volumes bound in contemporary blue marble covers and four in-4 quires as well as a handwritten copy of a letter.
Thirty-nine manuscripts, typeset by several hands, comprising thirty-two plays (thirty comedies and two tragedies), including seven previously unpublished plays: Le Portrait, Ariste, L'Ecueil de la Jeunesse, L'Ecole des Petits-Maîtres, Le Satyrique, L'Enfant Gâté and La Curiosi-Manie.
Provenance: author's library; originally in the family of his brother and sole heir Philippe Coypel (1703-1777); by descent and marriage; private collection, Tours.
Previously unseen corpus of the theatrical work of Charles-Antoine Coypel, First Painter to the King, comprising 39 manuscripts including 32 plays gathered in seven bound volumes, four notebooks and one letter.
Full description on the rouillac.com website.
UNPUBLISHED CORPUS OF THE DRAMATIC WORK OF CHARLES-ANTOINE COYPEL, FIRST PAINTER TO THE KING AND DIRECTOR OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY OF PAINTING AND SCULPTURE
Charles-Antoine Coypel belonged to one of the most influential artistic dynasties in eighteenth-century France. His grandfather Noël directed the Académie de France in Rome and his father Antoine was First Painter to the King. Charles-Antoine naturally succeeded them, reaching the double summit of the art hierarchy in 1747: First Painter to the King and Director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. A portrait painter, pastellist and designer of the cartoons for the famous Don Quixote series for the Manufacture des Gobelins, he worked for Louis XV, Marie Leszczynska and Madame de Pompadour. His most famous paintings, La Colère d'Achille (Hermitage Museum) and Athalie interrogant Joas (Musée des Beaux-Arts de Brest), bear witness to an aesthetic in which painting becomes theatre.
Coypel had a second, lesser-known passion: writing for the stage. He wrote plays not for the public stage, but for the salons of high society and the flats of the royal family. He defined them as "moral reflections put into action". The Dauphin kept them permanently on his table and planned to have them printed at his own expense. His death put an end to this plan. Voltaire was annoyed by this in a famous epigram: "He is a poet by brush, and a painter by chance.
The collection presented here constitutes the almost complete corpus of this dramatic work. It comprises seven in-4 volumes bound in period blue marbled boards, four in-4 notebooks with blue silk cords and a copy of a letter addressed to the Abbé de Rothelin, the artist's confidant and literary collaborator. Thirty-two titles are collected in all: thirty comedies in prose and two tragedies in verse. Seven plays remain unpublished to this day: Le Portrait, Ariste, L'Ecueil de la Jeunesse, L'Ecole des Petits-Maîtres, Le Satyrique, L'Enfant Gâté and La Curiosi-Manie, the latter a lively satire of the world of drawing collectors.
These manuscripts were jealously guarded: the Duc de La Vallière, who owned a copy, reported that Coypel was "very jealous not to make them public" and that obtaining a copy was "proof of the greatest confidence". Several volumes bear autograph erasures, corrections and additions, direct evidence of the artist's work on his texts.
Three manuscript copies are preserved in the public collections of the Valenciennes, BnF and Arsenal libraries, but there are only twenty-one titles in all. These manuscripts, kept in the family for over 250 years by direct descent from the artist's brother and sole heir, are the most comprehensive source available for studying Coypel's dramatic work and its profound links with his pictorial practice.
This corpus is a key source for the history of social theatre and the study of the relationship between painting and literature at the beginning of the Enlightenment.
Certificate of exit from French territory.
See original version (French)
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Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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