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A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century image 1
A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century image 2
A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century image 3
A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century image 4
Lot 47

A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran
the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century

Europe - Defining Style
9 July 2015, 14:00 BST
London, New Bond Street

£15,000 - £25,000

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A set of six painted wood panels after the Twelve Months series by Claude III Audran

the panels 18th century, the paintings refreshed and 19th century
with a green grotesque style décor on a golden background, the months depicted by zodiac signs and associated mythologic gods: Neptune and Pisces for February, Venus and Taurus for April, Apollo and Gemini for May, Jupiter and Leo for July, Vulcan and Libra for September, Diana and Sagittarius for November, within a silver and green-painted carved frame, on a later rococo style outside board forming a screen, each panel approx. 73cm wide, 248cm high (28 1/2in wide, 97 1/2in high). (6)

Footnotes

Provenance:
Sotheby's Parke Bernet, New York, lot 135, 28th October 1978.

These panels are based on designs by Claude Audran le Jeune, Antoine Watteau and Alexandre-François Desportes for the Gobelins tapestries "Les Douze Mois Grotesques".
Claude Audran le Jeune (d. 1734) designed this series in 1708 and 1709 while he was executing the decoration of the apartments of the Dauphin, later King Louis XV, at the Château de Meudon. An entry in the Comptes des Bâtiments indicates the creation of the series at a cost of 495 livres.
It is probable that the young Antoine Watteau (d. 1721), then just 23 or 24 years old, collaborated on this project, while it was Alexandre-François Desportes (d. 1743) who supplied the animal figures.

Literature:
- T.A. Strange, French Interiors, Furniture, Decoration, Woodwork and Allied Arts, London, 1950, pp.246-247-248-252-253 and 255 for illustrations of preparatory drawings.
- P. Verlet, M. Florissoone, A. Hoffmeister, F. Tabard, La Tapisserie, histoire et technique du XIVe au XXe siècle, Lausanne, 1977.
- Christelle Inizan, Découverte à Paris d'un plafond peint à décor de singeries attribué à Claude III Audran, Antoine Watteau et Nicolas Lancret, In Situ, Revue des Patrimoines, online 22 august 2011.

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