Featured lot selected by the auctions House.
Premium PICHON & NOUDEL-DENIAU, Commissaires-Priseurs
115
-
Noël-Nicolas COYPEL (1690–1734)
See original version (French)
115
-
Noël-Nicolas COYPEL (1690–1734)
See original version (French)
Estimate €10,000 - €15,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Noël-Nicolas COYPEL (1690–1734)
The Wrath of Neptune (Quos Ego)
OIL ON CANVAS
Height: 73.5 cm
Width: 91.5 cm
Minor losses
Provenance: Mentioned in the report on the seizure following the artist’s death, dated 14 December 1734, (published by J. Guiffrey, *Scellés et inventaires d’artistes français*, Paris, 1884, pp. 308–317);
Paris, Anonymous sale, December 1768, lot 58 (120 livres).
Louis Arride Collection (1936–2026), painter of the Toulon School
Bibliography: Jérôme Delaplanche, Noël-Nicolas Coypel, 1690–1734, Paris, Arthena, 2004, p. 112, no. P64 (painting lost).
The subject of our painting is taken from Virgil’s *Aeneid* (Book I, line 135), the famous ‘Quos Ego’, a threat abruptly cut short, leaving the reader to imagine the sentence (aposope):
Neptune, god of the seas, is angry with the winds, which Juno has unleashed to stir up a storm and harass the Trojan hero Aeneas. He must calm these rebellious winds: (Neptune) summons (the winds) Eurus and Zephyr to his side, and says to them: ‘Do you derive such great confidence from your lineage?
Now, without my command, you have the audacity,
O winds, to shake heaven and earth, and to stir up such masses?
I shall…! But it is better to calm the churning waves.
Noël Nicolas Coypel revisits, in a Rococo style, the subject of Rubens’s famous painting, now
held at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister in Dresden, but which was in Paris in the Lériget de La Faye collection in the 18th century. This collector and art dealer belonged to our artist’s social circle. Rubens’s *Quos Ego* was the most highly valued item in his inventory, worth 4,500 livres in 1731.
Our painter excels at depicting the turbulence of the waves, as evidenced by his *The Abduction of Europa* (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1727), *Saint Francis of Paola and his companions crossing the Strait of Messina on his cloak* (Lyon, Primatial Church of Saint John), and several other mythological and maritime subjects (*Orion*, Versailles, Hôtel de Ville, 1727).
We would like to thank Jérôme Delaplanche for confirming the attribution following a visual examination on 15 September 2026. We would also like to thank François Marandet for confirming the attribution by email on 15 September 2026.
Expert: Cabinet Turquin – Stéphane Pinta
Lot viewable by appointment only at the expert’s premises
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like