Lot n° 167
Estimation :
20000 - 30000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 28 980EUR
Bon BOULLOGNE, dit Boullogne l'aîné (1649-1717)
Solomon receiving the Queen of Sheba circa 1695
Oil on canvas (lining probably from the late 19th century)
century) 184.5 x 255 cm.
Provenance:
- From a member of one of the most illustrious and ancient families of the French aristocracy, which included many collectors of great taste, and whose acquisition of this painting from the artist cannot be excluded.
Related works :
- another copy, of smaller size ("36 inches" and "48 inches" or 97 x 130 cm.), cited, under the name of Louis de Boulogne, in the sale of the collection of the merchant and expert Jacques Lenglier (1732-1810) (Paris, Le Brun et Brullé, 24 April 1786, lot 123). This version, acquired by the seller himself at the time for 300 livres, has probably never reappeared since (current location unknown).
- another copy, of "ricordo" format (32,5 x 40,5 cm.), presented, under the name of Bon Boullogne, in an auction at the Hôtel Drouot (Paris, Fraysse et Associés, December 10, 2020, lot 22), currently in a private collection (current location unknown).
Our painting is an important rediscovery of a monumental painting by Bon Boullogne, a painter famous for his talents as a colorist, of whom "one notices the almost total disappearance of the great religious paintings that were commissioned from him".
Boullogne, as soon as he was admitted to the Académie Royale in 1677 at the age of 28, received prestigious commissions: a "May" of Notre Dame, the year of his reception, and a painting of the Church of the Holy Cross.
Dame, the year of his reception, then for the Parisian churches of the Assumption, of the Conception, of Saint-Germain l'Auxerrois, of
of Notre-Dame des Victoires, the convent of Célestins, the convent of
Chartreux, etc.
For his secular repertoire, one observes a long list of deliveries to private collections of first order: the king (for Versailles and the
Trianon), the Dauphin (for Meudon), the Parliament of Paris, the Hôtel des Comédiens Français, the Hôtel Archiépiscopal d'Orléans, the Hôtel de Ville de Toulouse, etc.
However, no archive has allowed us to identify the context of the commission for our painting, whose dimensions nevertheless betray a high rank.
The subject is taken from the First Book of Kings, chapter 10: "The queen of
The queen of Sheba, having heard of Solomon's fame, in the name of God, came to test him with riddles. She came to Jerusalem with a very considerable crew, camels carrying spices, gold in very great quantity, and precious stones. She went to Solomon, and she told him all that was in her heart."
Given the great closeness, both emotional and artistic, of
Bon with his younger brother Louis (1654-1733), it should be noted that Louis presented at the Salon, in 1699, a subject that also exploited the figure of King Solomon, a model of wisdom: "The Judgment of Solomon" (a second version, dated 1710, in Moscow, Pushkin Museum, inv. Zh-1221, 133 x 166 cm.), whose compositional orientation is the opposite of that of our painting, thus forming a potential diptych.
Bibliography :
Marandet, François (ed).
2014. Bon Boullogne 1649-1717 - Un chef d'école au Grand Siècle, cat. exp. (Dijon, Musée Magnin, 5 December 2014 - 5 March 2015).
Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux.
Note:
We thank Mr. François Marandet for suggesting a dating and confirming the attribution of this work, examined on photograph, by a written communication dated April 2023, during which he informed us of the "Lenglier version" and described our painting as "one of the best by [the artist] that has reappeared on the market in recent years."
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