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Jean-Baptiste OUDRY Paris, 1685 - 1755, Beauvais
Louis XV hu…
See original version (French)
Jean-Baptiste OUDRY Paris, 1685 - 1755, Beauvais
Louis XV hu…
See original version (French)
Lot no. 18
Old paintings Drawings, watercolours & pastels Books, manuscripts, old papers and historical documents
DescriptionJean-Baptiste OUDRY
Paris, 1685 - 1755, Beauvais
Louis XV hunting deer in the forest of Saint-Germain, the bat-l'eau, 1728
Pen and black ink, grey wash and white and pink gouache highlights on faded blue paper
Signed lower left and dated 1728 (partially legible), countersigned in pen and brown ink
31.5 x 55 cm - 12 3/8 x 21 5/8 in.
(Slightly insolated, minor spotting)
Louis XV hunting deer in the forest of Saint-Germain, "le bat-l'eau", pen and black ink, grey wash heightened with white and pink gouache on blue paper, signed and dated
PROVENANCE
Henri Gallice sale, Paris, Galerie Charpentier, 25 May 1934, no. 33; acquired during this sale by Paul Desbordes (1862-1943), Château d'Avize; by descent, Château de La Noue; then by descent, private collection (Belgium).
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Hal OPPERMAN, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 2 vols, New York & London, Garland Publishing, Inc, 1977 (1972), n°D576.
Hal OPPERMAN and Pierre ROSENBERG, Jean-Baptiste Oudry. 1686-1755, cat. exp. exhibition, Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand-Palais, 1 October 1982 - 3 January 1983, p. 132, cited under n°59.
RELATED WORKS
Louis XV hunting deer in the forest of Saint Germain, Toulouse, Musée des Augustins, oil on canvas, 211 x 387 cm (inv. N°Ro 182)
This superb drawing had not reappeared since the Gallice sale in 1934. It was the drawing chosen by the King in 1728 for a large hunting painting to decorate the King's antechamber at the Château de Marly, a few kilometres from the hunting ground in the forest of Saint-Germain. Oudry executed his painting, making a number of changes to his drawing. The main changes (of which there are many) concern the removal of the two figures of the hunters going into the water to retrieve the animal, and the addition of his own portrait depicting the scene on the right, replacing the two horsemen.
"I was there," he says, looking at us proudly. In fact, in January 1728, the King ordered Oudry, his ordinary painter, to follow the royal hunts in order to prepare a large painting showing the King as a huntsman. Oudry did his utmost to comply with His Majesty's wishes. We know of several drawings showing Oudry's proposals to the king: Louis XV chassant le loup (Louvre inv. N°31493) and Louis XV tenant en laisse un limier (private collection), both dated 1728.
Louis XV chose the bat-l'eau episode, whose theatricality is far superior to other known scenes. The king, surrounded by his large crew on horseback, points to the bestial end in the pond. A sailor in a boat prepares to push the stag chased by the dogs back into the water, while behind him two hunters have undressed and are entering the water. The dogs on the bank, overexcited, bark at the top of their voices. Behind them, horses prance and prance, horns sounding their horns. In the background, the royal retinue approaches from the right, while the wine supplies approach from the left to refresh throats. In the background, in the gap in the trees, a few buildings represent the town of Saint-Germain.
The figures surrounding Louis XV are probably: on the left, Bonnet, a wine runner on a donkey; the Marquis de Dampierre, a horn composer, plays his instrument on horseback; around Louis XV, in the centre of the composition, are Prince Charles de Lorraine, Grand Esquire of France, the Marquis de Beringhen, the King's First Esquire, the Count of Toulouse, the King's Grand Veneur, and other figures (see Opperman and Rosenberg, opus cited above, pp.132-134). We know that Oudry later drew portraits of all the people represented in the painting (thirteen figures have been identified).~
Oudry's painting aroused great enthusiasm in France and throughout Europe. Oudry drew inspiration from it for his famous series of Royal Hunts, which began with drawings and culminated in the royal commission for three large tapestries in 1733 (see O. Beaufils and V. Cochet, Jean-Baptiste Oudry peintre de courre/Les Chasses royales de Louis XV, Fontainebleau, 2024-2025, ed. Grand Palais RMN, n°25, pp.87-89 | 96-97).~ The history of the painting is eventful.
The history of the painting is eventful: it left Marly in 1748 to be installed at the Château de La Muette. It returned to Marly in 1764. Seized during the Revolution, it was deposited in Versailles, then moved to the Museum Central des Arts in the Louvre in 1809, before being sent to Toulouse in 1812.
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