François LEMOYNE  (Paris 1688 – 1737 Paris) and Workshop
The Glorification of Juno

Oil on shaped and rounded canvas, later returned to rectangular format 92 x 137.5 cm (3 ft. ¼ in. x 4 ft. 5  ¹⁵/₁₆  in.)                           

PROVENANCE                                         

-   Arsène Houssaye Collection, Paris sale, Drouot, May 1896, under n°71 ; 

-   Madrid sale, Alcala Subastas, October 6^th, 2011, lot 398 (as an autograph work by François Le Moyne, according to Alastair Laing) ;

-   Acquired and conserved until now by the current owner.

Bibliography

-   J-L.. BORDEAUX, François Le Moyne and his Generation, 1688-1737, Paris: Arthena, 1984, p. 87, n°35, illustrated in black and white, Fig.3.

Exhibition

- Alexis Bordes Gallery, Paris, 16th to 19th century Old Master Paintings (Tableaux anciens du XVIe au XIXe siècle), November-December 2012.

    A student of Louis Galloche at the beginning of the 18th century, François Lemoyne (also known as Le Moine or Le Moyne) was received as an Academician in 1781. In contrast to Watteau, his contemporary with whom his works are often confused, he led an official career as a Professor at the Academy (starting in 1733) and as First Painter to the King (appointed 1736).

    While his first paintings were conceived in warm hues inherited from Jouvenet, Lemoyne rapidly veered to seeking lighter coloring and adopted a more unctuous, fluid, and vibrant touch as a result of two events: Pellegrini’s sojourn in Paris where the Italian, who was also his rival, worked on a ceiling project for the Royal Bank in 1719, and his own trip to Italy (Rome, Venice, 1724). This new style can be found, for example in  Hercules and Omphale, a picture conserved in the Louvre. He received commissions for religous paintings starting in 1715 which continued to be fairly numerous until he left for Italy in late 1723 (Saint Thomas Aquinas  ceiling).

    Upon his return to France, Lemoyne worked for various monuments and churches in Paris before receiving two commissions for the Château of Versailles: an allegorical composition for the Salon of Peace (Louis XV Presenting Peace to Europe, 1728-1729) and the ceiling for the Salon of Hercules (1733-1736, oil sketch at Versailles). These grand decorative works remained in the tradition inherited from the Grand Century, although their composition is more legible, less austere and certainly less monumental.

    Intended as an overdoor with an original rounded shaped format, and then subsquently adapted to a rectangle, the origins of our work have not yet been identified. Jean-Luc Bordeaux’ article in  L’estampille – l’Objet d’Art, no. 473, November 2011, provided a state of research on the rediscovery of Lemoyne’s curved and shaped works executed for the  Hôtel Biron.

    Our picture probably was integrated into the private mansion’s wainscoting. A few written mentions refer to the work Lemoyne could have executed for the  Hôtel de Soubise  and others, but do not, for all that, establish any link with our painting. According to Jean-Luc Bordeaux, our  Glorification of Juno  undoubtedly was part of a decorative project in over-doors which was made relatively early in the painter’s career, most likely a work conceived before 1720 that served to teach students in his studio which, in 1719, already included the young painters Boucher and Natoire. Another hypothesis is that our picture was realized during work on the vault for the Hercules Ceiling in Versailles in about 1632.

    A close relationship between our picture and the work conserved in the Louvre depicting  Juno, Iris, and Flora, an overdoor made for the Château of Montfermeil, bears signaling.

    The Glorification of Juno  would appear to be a beautiful example of this moment of perfect balance between the grand French decorative tradition and a contemporary taste for a lighter style of painting. The blossoming of elegance and grace as seen in the paintings of Lemoyne’s students Boucher and Natoire was made possible by this equilibrium. 

    Here the goddess Juno, patroness of marriage and fertility, who was also the jealous vindictive wife of Jupiter, is depicted triumphantly on her chariot drawn by peacocks, her emblematic birds. Surrounded by a swirl of putti, she floats in the midst of the clouds as if borne by the air, for which she is also an allegorical figure.

    Comparison with the  modello, the preparatory sketch of the composition, for the decoration of the vault of the Salon of Hercules by François Lemoyne (1732),[1]  when placed side by side in the Château of Versailles brings out the close relationship between the two paintings, especially in the chromatic range, the modeling, and the putti’s movements.

    The presence of many  pentimenti  was revealed by examination under infrared[2]  on the overall composition. These can mainly be seen on Juno in the center of the painting, as well as on the putto on the left and especially on head contours of the Putti in the upper center. They are comparable to others detected on the Versailles modello ; similarly for the putto in François Lemoyne’s work,  Venus and Adonis, conserved in the National Museum in Stockholm.[3]  Furthermore, infrared examinations brought out several preparatory drawings.

    The poet and collector Arsène Houssaye was undoubtedly attracted to this free bold style, so strongly identified with taste of its period. Houssay, a man of letters during the Romantic Period and an associate of Gerard de Nerval and Theophile Gautier, heavily contributed to bringing 18th century art back into fashion during the 1830s and 1840s. He was one of the first to write about Watteau and the Van Loo, and he gathered a beautiful collection of artworks scattered in 1896 which included our picture.

    After having studied the painting in person in 2012, and consulted the scientific report of September 20th, 2021,[4]  Madame François Joulie confirmed that she is convinced of the autograph character of this work by François Lemoyne.

    After examining the work, Mr. Jean-Luc Bordeaux confirmed the attribution to François Lemoyne and Workshop, and proposed an execution date of about 1719-1722.

[1]  Oil on canvas laid down on pasteboard, 116 x 149 cm. (3 ft. 9 ¹¹/₁₆ in. x 4 ft. 10 ¹¹/₁₆ in.) N^o Inv 6713. MV 6277

[2]  Chantal Aouiry, Archipel, report of September 20th, 2021.

[3]  92 x 73 cm. / 3 ft ¼ in. x 2 ft. 4 ¾ in.; signed and dated lower left: F. LEMOYNE 1729 ; inv. 824.

[4]  Aouiry, op. cit.