Philippe de Champaigne

(Brussels 1602-1674 Paris)

The Adoration of the Shepherds in a Louis XIII frame

Footnotes

PROVENANCE
Galerie Pardo, Paris, 1999, whence acquired by the present owners

Dominique Brême (the director of the Exhibition, A l'école de Philippe de Champaigne, Musée d'Evreux, 18 November 2007 - 17 February 2008) and Frédérique Lanoë (who assisted in curating the exhibition) have both confirmed that the present canvas is an autograph modello for the artist's larger work (on canvas, 232.5 x 161.5 cm.) that now hangs in the Wallace Collection, London. A further version by Philippe de Champaigne or his workshop (on canvas, 102 x 58 cm.), is in Portland Art Museum, Portland Oregon. The latter shows the composition slightly extended at the sides, which has raised the question of whether the Wallace Collection picture has been reduced in size. However, a technical examination of the latter after cleaning has established that this was not the case (see M. Allden and R. Beresford, Two altar-pieces by Philippe de Champaigne: their history and technique, June 1989, pp. 402-406).

The earliest description that accounts for the origin of the Wallace Collection picture is from the auction catalogue when the picture was sold in Paris in 1766. This states that 'it was commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu for the Abbey of Quincy, which had been joined to the Bishopric of Antwerp. This picture, the beauty of which is perfect, was the reason why Marie de Médicis, Queen of France, made the artist her premier peintre [in 1628] ...' The veracity of this account, however, has been questioned and the latest suggestion is that it was commissioned for the Abbey of Quincy, near Tanlay, in the diocese of Langres, which was the subject of lavish expenditure in the late 1640s by its abbot, Mathieu de Mesgrigny. Mesgrigny, who served as abbot until 1643 and remained closely involved in the affairs of the Abbey at least until 1648, was well-connected and rich enough to have patronised Philippe de Champaigne. The technical analysis conducted by Allden and Beresford, moreover, shows that the layer structures and the range of pigments are closely comparable to the artist's Annunciation in the Wallace Collection, suggesting that the Wallace Adoration of the Shepherds most likely dates from the mid 1640s (op. cit., pp. 404-406).