Oil On Canvas - Jean Baptiste Santerre - Late 17th Century

This framed painting is late 17th, very early 18th, we would say around 1700 - 1702 It is over 300 years old. The exceptional quality of the paint layer attests that it has been kept in the best possible conditions. It is on its original canvas. Dimensions: 68 x 81 (without the frame) About our painting: "A LA BOUGIE ..." The young woman represented on our painting practices drawing from an allegory of architecture, bronze statuette including the model is due to Jean de Bologne. Although the mid-body framing and the dark background refer to the portrait register (see the influence of the Rembrandts at this period), the mysterious young lady with graceful features is made unrecognizable by a sort of gallant idealization. According to his biographers, Santerre "left the portraits, that is to say, he no longer wanted to commit to making them look perfectly" and "he put on the nicest heads of those for whom he was doing them". Santerre defines an ideal feminine physical type: oval faces embellished with large brown eyes, black hair raised in a bun, pale complexions, free foreheads, shiny and hemmed lips, fine noses and well-drawn eyebrows are constants in the artist. These features are no doubt inspired by his main pupil and companion, Marguerite Blanchot, who poses frequently for his master. These intimate images of a painter in love with his muse are transformed into fantasy figures intended to charm the viewer. This scene illustrates the transformation of love-passion into pleasure and entertainment, and testifies to the evolution of taste, from the first years of the 18th century, towards a light and refined painting. Fancy figures describe transient states of mind, such as curiosity, banter or coquetry. The painter generally seeks to describe a malicious humor, by the means of a sensual look, of a pungent attitude, or even by the presence of a drapery or other accessory which reveals as much as it conceals Our canvas testifies to the one of the painter's greatest merits: the invention of "fantasy heads", a hybrid genre located halfway between the portrait and the genre scene. These female figures allow him to enjoy a great success with enlightened amateurs in the first two decades of the 18th century: the 'Mercure Galant' reports "that we tore them out, so to speak, from the hands, and that we Pushed them to a considerable price ". Another painting" Le Billet Doux Donné ", put up for sale in 2016, was estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 € According to Mrs. Claude LESNE, author of the artist's catalog raisonné, our work is due to a close collaborator of Santerre, perhaps Marguerite Blanchot (entered the artist's home as a student around 1692, she became his collaborator and companion after having been his model), of whom we know that she copied the works of her lover (communication Jean Baptiste SANTERRE 1651 - 1714 Born in Magny-en-Vexin in 1651, Jean-Baptiste Santerre trained alongside François Lemaire, After his apprenticeship with Bon Boulogne in Paris, the young Santerre began his career as a po rtraitiste (in particular by painting queen Marie Leczinska, painting today at Versailles), but it is with his paintings of fancy female figures that he acquires fame. Cookers, embroiderers, women asleep or reading, designers, the characters are generally seen half-length, sometimes leaning at a window, and testify to the influence of the Dutch taste then widespread in Paris, the influence of Rembrandt's models being predominant , and noticeable in the way of bringing out the figure from a dark or artificially lit environment. Santerre was received at the Academy as a history painter in 1704 with a 'Suzanne and the old men', currently kept at the Louvre. He then began, at the age of fifty-three, the official part of his career. Noticed by Louis XIV, he also received, at the end of his life, affirmed support from the Regent.
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