François MAROT (Paris, 1666 – id., 1719)

Circa 1717-18

Allegory of Sight

Signed lower left "Marot. fecit"

        The very recent rediscovery of the painter-academician François Marot (1666-1719) has provided an opportunity to clarify the confusion with Charles de La Fosse (1636-1716), his master, with whom he has often been confused (see Fr. Marandet, "In the wake of Charles de La Fosse: François Marot (1666-1719), Les Cahiers d'Histoire de l'Art, 2010, pp. 40-47; and, by the same author, "François Marot: fourteen rediscovered works", Les Cahiers d'Histoire de l'Art, 2015, pp. 68-74).

        After an apprenticeship with Charles de La Fosse (1636-1716), François Marot was admitted as history painter to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1702 (Allegory of the Peace of Ryswick; Tours, Museum of Fine Arts). He was subsequently mobilized for the King's Buildings. In 1711, he participated in the tapestry of the King's History (The Institution of the Military Order of Saint Louis, known from a sketch preserved at the Palace of Versailles). Three years later, in 1714, he received a commission for a painting for the Marble Trianon (Latona and the Peasants of Lycia; in situ). However, these rare royal commissions offer a dichotomy with the leading role that Marot played in decorative matters, both in France and abroad. As we have demonstrated, he was in fact paid around 1704 to deliver paintings to the entourage of Duke Maximilian-Emmanuel, Duke of Bavaria, through the brothers Paul and André Vérani de Varenne, two extremely wealthy jewelers (Marandet 2015, op. cit., p. 71). It is in this context of aristocratic commissions that we must connect the unpublished painting we are presenting. This represents an Allegory of Sight as codified by Ripa.

        Given its horizontal format and its subject, our painting must have been part of some series illustrating the five senses in allegorical form. The best proof is the reappearance in the art trade, a few years ago, of a Allegory of Hearing (sale Milan, Semenzato, October 19, 1999, no. 65; Fig. 1). Beyond the similar dimensions (76 cm x 138 cm), this one bears the signature "Marot" at the bottom left, as on our painting. Regardless of these observations, our painting offers a typical style of François Marot. The effects deliberately sketched in places, especially where the fabrics are crumpled, recall the influence of La Fosse, and, through him, that of the Rubens model. Since the famous "quarrel" provoked by the Rubens of the Duke of Richelieu, we know how much the art of Rubens was reorienting the vision of French artists at the end of the reign of Louis XIV.

Fig.1.

        Two drawings by François Marot confirm the classification of our painting and allow us to follow its genesis. The first is located in a private collection in Great Britain (Fig. 2). We can clearly recognize the model from which François Marot designed his personification of Sight. We thus discover that she had been studied naked before being partially draped, in a second stage. The arch of the putto at her side also reveals an inversion of pose: by means of this discreet modification, he thus approached Sight while looking at the spectator.

        The second drawing offered by Galerie Paul Prouté, Paris). We see a similar nude, which was undoubtedly preparatory to an allegory from the same series. We especially notice two "reprises" of limbs related to our painting. Thus the right hand, in the upper part, prepares that of the personification of sight. More blatantly, the left forearm prepares that of the same figure, equipped with a mirror.

          One final observation is necessary regarding our painting. The chronology of François Marot's production covers some thirty years (from 1690, roughly, to 1719), but the milestones that allow us to follow its evolution are extremely rare, due to a lack of dated works. However, if this is not the case with our painting, the very nature of the frame of The Allegory of Hearing necessarily betrays a late dating. We know, in fact, that the first fretted borders only appeared from the Regency period. Knowing the date of François Marot's death (1719), our painting could only have been painted by him at the very end of his life, probably around 1717-1718.

            We are grateful to François Marandet for confirming the attribution and for his kind assistance in cataloguing.

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