Attributed to Jean-Pierre NORBLIN DE LA GOURDAINE (1745-1830 - Lot 147

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Lot n° 147
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Estimation :
3000 - 5000 EUR
Attributed to Jean-Pierre NORBLIN DE LA GOURDAINE (1745-1830 - Lot 147
Attributed to Jean-Pierre NORBLIN DE LA GOURDAINE (1745-1830) Mural illustrating the life and death of Charles-Ferdinand d'Artois, duke of Berry (1778-1820) Black stone, watercolor, pen and gouache on paper (broken glass) 56 x 78 cm In this rare trompe l' eil of spectacular format, two yellowed newspaper articles dated Tuesday, February 14, 1820, allow us to detect that the work is a tribute to the premature death of Charles-Ferdinand d' rtois, Duc de Berry (1778-1820), stabbed by Louis Pierre Louvel, a Bonapartist worker, on leaving the opera house at the age of 42. The artist also represented the duke of Berry on his deathbed in the center of the composition, probably inspired by the engraving of Charles Motte (Bibliothèque nationale de France, Reserve QB-370 (77) -FT4). We propose here to attribute this sheet to Jean-Pierre Norblin de la Gourdaine (1745-1830) of whom we know a second trompe-l' e we know a second trompe-l' eil kept in the Louvre Museum in Paris (inv. 35176), revealed in 2018 thanks to the article of Mrs Charlotte Guichard. Beyond the representation of playing cards and the insect allowing to bring together the two compositions of the same hand, the artist took care to reproduce some royal clues recalling the filiation to the lineage of the Bourbons of the subject, such as a drawing of the royal medal in the center of the composition on the left representing Henry IV and Marie de Medici, made in 1603 by the medalist and sculptor Guillaume Dupré (1576-1603) and preserved today in the Museum of Fine Arts in Lyon (MedFr62). The work also includes some examples of the productions of the most eminent artists of the previous centuries, including an illustration in the middle left of a drawing representing the Rest of the Hunter after the marble sculpture by Nicolas Coustou (1658-1733) now preserved in Paris at the Louvre Museum (inv. MR 1796) and a reproduction at the bottom right of a drawing by Pierre Paul Prud' on (1758-1823) representing La Vertu aux prises avec le Vice by a work kept in New York, Frick collection (inv. 5955). Let us also note the presence, off-center on the right, of a portrait of Montesquieu made by an engraving by Pierre-Michel Alix (1762-1817) conserved in Paris at the Carnavalet museum (inv. G.4197) as well as the one of Jean-Jacques Rousseau at the bottom left, almost covered, by an engraving by the same artist, conserved in Geneva at the museum of art and history (inv. E 2011-0114). At the top left, on a reproduction of an antique profile in red chalk, probably by Edme Bouchardon (1698-1762), the artist has reproduced a sheet containing the portraits in black stone of Plato and Socrates. Finally, at the bottom left, the reproduction of a scene of drinkers in a tavern recalls the painter's interest in the Nordic production of the 17th century, of which we find some examples in the trompe-l' eil mentioned above, preserved in the Louvre Museum in Paris. M.O.
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