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Charles-Antoine COYPEL (Paris, 1694 – 1752)
Bust portrait of…
See original version (French)
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Charles-Antoine COYPEL (Paris, 1694 – 1752)
Bust portrait of…
See original version (French)
Estimate €15,000 - €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Charles-Antoine COYPEL (Paris, 1694 – 1752)
Bust portrait of a young girl with a yellow bow, one hand raised
Pastel on paper mounted on board
46 x 35 cm – 18 1/8 × 13 3/4 in.
(Water stain running lengthways down the centre at neck level (approx. 15 cm by 3 cm), small stain in the centre of the forehead)
Oval-shaped frame, spandrels in gold gouache.
We would like to thank Mr Neil Jeffares for confirming the authenticity of this pastel from a photograph. It is worth noting that there are several oval pastels whose spandrels are painted in gold gouache, which suggests that this was a common practice of the artist.
Bust portrait of a young girl wearing a yellow bow, with one hand raised, pastel on paper mounted on cardboard
Provenance:
Private collection, France.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Neil Jeffares, Online Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, Coypel Charles-Antoine, no. J.24724024, ill.
Description:
Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694–1752) belonged to one of the most important dynasties of French painters of the 17th and 18th centuries. The grandson of Noël Coypel (1628–1707) and son of Antoine Coypel (1661–1722), he received an artistic education from an early age within a circle closely linked to the royal court and the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Carrying on this family tradition, he enjoyed a brilliant career during the reigns of Louis XV and the Regency.
A history painter, set designer, draughtsman, engraver and man of letters, Coypel played a prominent role in Parisian artistic life. He became First Painter to the Duke of Orléans following his father’s death in 1722, before being appointed First Painter to the King and Director of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1747. He also held the prestigious post of Keeper of the Crown’s Paintings and Drawings.
Whilst Coypel is best known for his history paintings and his compositions inspired by theatre or literature, he was also a prolific portraitist. He produced portraits in oil as well as numerous pastels, a technique particularly favoured in the 18th century for its speed of execution and its ability to render the softness of the skin and the velvety texture of fabrics[1]. His subjects were mainly members of the aristocracy and the royal entourage, but he also produced several self-portraits as well as portraits of actors and children.
His portraits are characterised by a great liveliness of expression: the figures often look directly at the viewer, and the hands play an essential role in bringing the composition to life. This pursuit of expressiveness reflects Coypel’s interest in theatre and stagecraft. His portraiture, attentive to psychology and the delicacy of materials, would influence several artists of the following generation, notably Louis Tocqué and certain leading French pastel artists of the Age of Enlightenment[2].
This portrait of a young girl with a yellow bow, executed in pastel by Charles-Antoine Coypel, perfectly illustrates the artist’s portraiture skills. Depicted in bust form within a drawn oval frame, the young model is dressed in the manner of a woman, in keeping with 18th-century custom. The delicate yellow bow around her neck, her slightly powdered curly hair, and the rendering of the fabrics all bear witness to the care Coypel took with materials and textural effects. Here, the pastel medium enables him to capture both the softness of the skin and the sheen of the fabric, in a technique where line and colour blend subtly.
As in many of Coypel’s portraits, the model’s gaze is directed straight at the viewer, whilst a lively hand, with a raised finger, introduces a sense of movement into the composition. This attention to gesture reflects the artist’s profound consideration of expression. Charles Coypel wrote that, in the absence of ‘Gesture is a language common to all mankind, through which one can make oneself understood even by the most distant and barbarous nations. (…) The painter, through poses and gestures, must not only give voice to his figures in the absence of words, but must also strive to imitate the power of speech, and to express the feelings and stirrings of the soul (…)’[3]. This idea, formulated in relation to his genre painting, is clearly reflected in his portraits, where the hands, the liveliness of the gaze and the expression play a full part in bringing the subject to life psychologically.
The work also displays several characteristics typical of his portraiture: a sober background subtly modulated by light, large, open eyes set in shallow sockets, fine eyebrows, and meticulous attention to lace and fabrics[4]. Coypel’s portraits are most often executed as half-length or bust portraits, frequently in an oval format similar to this one. The spandrels highlighted with gilded gouache are found in several of his pastels, notably in one of his self-portraits (Fig. 1), and appear to have been a recurring feature of the artist’s work.
The choice to depict a child alone is also indicative of changing sensibilities during the Age of Enlightenment[5]. Until the mid-18th century, portraits of children remained relatively rare outside of princely or religious contexts. Gradually, however, under the influence of new ideas about childhood and education, the child became a subject in her own right. This portrait thus bears witness, from quite an early stage, to this new focus on the individual and on childhood, whilst retaining the elegant and sophisticated conventions characteristic of the aristocracy of the time.
[1] Thierry Lefrançois, Charles Coypel: Painter to the King: 1694–1752, Paris, Arthéna, 1994, p. 69.
[2] Ibid., p. 70.
[3] Charles-Antoine Coypel, Speeches Delivered at the Conferences of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, Paris, J. Collombat, 1721, p. 157 [Available online].
[4] Thierry Lefrançois, op. cit., p. 80.
[5] On this subject, see: Edited by Christine Kayser, in collaboration with Xavier Salmon and Laurent Hugues, *L’Enfant chéri au siècle des Lumières*, exhibition catalogue, Cholet, Museum of Fine Arts, 15 March – 15 June 2003, p. 14.
See original version (French)
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Lot description modified on 06/18/2026 at 4:48 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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