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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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RICHARD REDDING ANTIQUES |
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Marguerite Blagé-Bataille (1863-1936) “Vulcan Presenting Arms to Venus for Aeneas” after François Boucher Oil on canvas 185 x 212 cm. This is a copy of François Boucher’s (1703-77) masterful oil in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (1757; 320 cm x 320 cm). From the Renaissance to the present day artists have gained from copying works by past masters; Blagé-Bataille’s may have been such an exercise but given its quality, it is possible that like Boucher’s, it was a commissioned work. Unfortunately little is known of Blagé-Bataille (listed in Benezit as merely Marguerite Blage). Born at Limoux Aude, she was a pupil of Mme Nérée-Gautier and became a member of L’Union des Femmes Peintres and Sculpteurs. Boucher’s oil, painted about 130 years before, was executed as a study for one of a series of tapestries by the Manufacture des Gobelins, the most famous and finest French tapestry factory founded in 1663. The design was commissioned by the marquis de Marigny, Louis XV’s minister of fine arts who was also brother of the king’s mistress Madame de Pompadour. In addition to Boucher, Marigny commissioned designs from Carle Vanloo (1705-65), Jean-Baptiste Pierre (1714-89) and Joseph-Marie Vien (1716-1809) for the series of ‘Amours de Dieux’ tapestries typifying the spirit of Rococo decoration and the ancient classics. An oil sketch for the painting, originally owned by Marigny, is now housed at the Clerk Art Institute, Williamstown M.A., which shows Cyclops above Vulcan as they hammer hot irons. Boucher painted a number of other works revolving around the same story. Among them is another oil in the Musée du Louvre ‘Venus Demanding Arms from Vulcan for Aeneas’, 1732, as well as ‘The Visit of Venus to Vulcan’ (1754, Wallace Collection London) and ‘Venus at Vulcan’s Forge’ (1769, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth). The latter was commissioned by the financier Bergeret de Frouville for the grand salon of his Paris residence. Though similar to the Louvre version the composition was reversed so that Vulcan reclines in the lower left corner. Boucher’s subject matter is taken from Virgil’s eighth book of The Aeneid, focusing on the story of Venus who visited Vulcan at his forge to collect the arms he had made for her son Aeneas when he was about to go war in Latium. The outcome of Aeneas’ victory was the founding of a Trojan settlement from which, according to legend, the Romans were descended. According to mythology Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno and was the god of the forge, god of fire and the blacksmith who forged weapons for many other gods and heroes. Though Vulcan was crippled from birth, Boucher’s painting shows him without deformity but implicit in the work is his yearning for Venus, visible on his face and by the way in which he reaches toward her with Aeneas’ sword. His passion and her role as goddess of love are further alluded to by the doves and putto encircling the whole composition. Vulcan and Venus were married though she then fell in love with Mars the god of war. When Vulcan learnt of her unfaithfulness he forged an invisible net to ensnare the lovers while they slept. Regarded as one of the greatest painters of the Rococo and the favourite of Madame Pompadour and the court of Louis XV, Boucher’s first commission for the Crown, for the chambre de la Reine at Versailles, 1735 was followed by many others. His first tapestry designs were made in 1736 for Beauvais, for whom he designed 45 tapestries all with the same sensuous Rococo elegance as those for the Gobelins, where he served as artistic director 1755-70. Boucher also made designs for the Sèvres and Vincennes porcelain factories (1749-56) as well as stage designs for the Opéra and Opéra-Comique. |