Portrait of Philippe Coypel and His Wife
CC0 Public Domain Designation
Charles-Antoine Coypel
French, 1694-1752
Trompe l'oeil: Not Just for April Fools
Charles-Antoine Coypel served as First Painter to the King and was also a professor at, and eventually Director of, the French Academy. Part of a powerful artistic dynasty, he was a significant collector, an aesthetic theorist, playwright, and poet, and an amateur actor. Although many of his most important paintings have been lost, this unusual double portrait pastel probably commemorates the tenth anniversary of the artist's beloved brother, Philippe Coypel ( 1703-1777) and his wife Marie-Catherine Botet. A true tour-de-force, this work shows one of France's most esteemed public artists at his very best.
Made 1742
Pastel on blue laid paper, pieced, laid down on canvas, and stretched on a wood stretcher
Signed lower center, in image: "C Coypel 1742"
Regenstein Endowment
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https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/180545/manifest.json
Abbé Pierre-François Guyot Desfontaines, "Expositions des Tabl. De l'Acad. De P. & de S.", Observations sur les écrits modernes 29 (Paris, 1742), p. 353.
Mercure de France (Sept. 1742), p. 2055 (cf. Slatkine Reprints, Geneva 1970, vol. 43, p. 152).
Salon Livret 1742 (Paris, June 1869), p. 12.
E. Bellier de la Chavignerie and L. Auvray, Dictionnaire général des artistes de l'École française, I (Paris, 1882), p. 316.
H. Mireur, Dictionnaire des ventes d'art faites en France et à l'étranger pendant les XVIIIe et les XIXe siècle, 2 (Paris, 1911), p. 306.
Ulrich Thieme and Felix Becker, Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Kunstler von der Antike bis zur Gegenwart…, 8 (Leipzig 1913), p. 28.
Florence Ingersolle-Smouse, "Charles-Antoine Coypel," La Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne 37 (May 1920), p. 288.
Irène Jamieson, Charles-Antoine Coypel, Premier Peintre de Louis XV et Auteur Dramatique (1694–1752) (Paris, 1930), pp. 20–21.
Paul Ratouis de Limay, Le Pastel en France au XVIIIème Siècle (Paris, 1946), p. 27.
Isabelle Compin, "Un portrait de Charles-Antoine Coypel au Musée du Louvre" La Revue du Louvre 2 (1969), p. 96.
Thierry Lefrançois, Charles Coypel, Peintre du roi (1694–1752) (Paris, 1994), pp. 30 (ill.), 323, no. P.215.
Salon of 1742 (August 25–September 21), cat. 2.
Sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, May 18, 1898, G. Mallet sale, lot 45, for 3000 francs [annotated sale catalogue]; private collection, Paris, to 2003; sold to the Art Institute, 2003.
Drawings (visual works)
Young Woman on Galloping Horse, n.d.
Johann August Rossmassler
Man Kneeling Before Veiled Woman with Mosque in Background, n.d.
The Fisherboy, n.d.
François Boucher
Portrait of a Man, n.d.
Music-Making Angels, n.d.
Vittorio Maria Bigari
Domestic Scene: Mother with Two Small Children before a Mantelpiece, n.d.
Study for Institution of the Rosary by Saint Dominic, n.d.
Francesco Lorenzi
Funeral Procession of the Young Pallas, Aeneid Book XI, 1762
Julien de Parme
Design for an Altar, n.d.
Unknown Bolognese
Walled Village and Tall Tree, n.d.
Scene from Roman History, n.d.
Italianate Landscape with Man and Two Women Herding Cattle, Goats and Sheep, n.d.