Maître de Flore

Zoom image

Download image:

109926v_0001.jpg

Maître de Flore

active second half of 16th century

Procris and Cephalus

ca. 1600

Brown wash, pen and brown ink, with white opaque watercolor, over black chalk, with red chalk, on paper.

8 5/8 x 12 1/8 inches (219 x 308 mm)

Purchased on the Fellows Fund, with the special assistance of Miss Alice Tully, Miss Julia P. Wightman, and the Thorne Foundation.

1978.34

Zoom image

Download verso image:

109926v_0002.jpg

Notes:

Watermark: none visible through lining.
See Ovid, "Metamorphoses", VII: 795-866.
During the second half of the sixteenth century, the château at Fontainebleau became a flourishing center of artistic production, where Italian, French, and Franco-Flemish artists worked together. The elegance and lyricism of this sheet are typical of the decorations carried out into the first decade of the seventeenth century. The artist responsible may have been an Italian artist active at Fontainebleau or one of the growing number of French artists in the late sixteenth century. The subject is from Ovid's Metamorphoses. The hunter Cephalus, in the right background, has hurled his javelin toward a noise in the woods. Unbeknownst to him, it has not struck an animal but instead has tragically pierced the breast of his beloved wife, Procris.

Inscription:

Numbered on verso of lining, at upper left in graphite, "14/17", "20" and "D406".

Provenance:

Unidentified collector's mark in black ink at lower right (G or C in rectangle); James Carnegie, 9th Earl of Southesk (1827-1905); Henry Scipio Reitlinger (1882-1950), London, (no mark; see Lugt Supplement 2274a); his sale, London, Sotheby's, 14 April 1954, lot 307; Mr. and Mrs. Germain Seligman, New York; acquired from R.M. Light & Co., Inc., Santa Barbara.

Associated names:

Southesk, James Carnegie, Earl of, 1827-1905, former owner.
Reitlinger, Henry Scipio, former owner.
Seligman, Germain, former owner.
Seligman, Germain, Mrs., former owner.
Tully, Alice, 1902-1993, donor.
Wightman, Julia P. (Julia Parker), 1909-1994, donor.
Ovid, 43 B.C.-17 or 18 A.D. Metamorphoses.

Bibliography:

Denison, Cara D., and Helen B. Mules, with the assistance of Jane V. Shoaf. European Drawings, 1375-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1981, no. 29, repr.
Denison, Cara D. French Drawings, 1550-1825. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984, no. 5, repr.
In August Company : The Collections of the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 8, p. 282, repr.
Denison, Cara D. French Master Drawings in the Pierpont Morgan Library. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1993, no. 8, repr. in color.
The Morgan Library : An American Masterpiece. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 2000, p. 56, repr. in color.
From Leonardo to Pollock: Master drawings from the Morgan Library. New York: Morgan Library, 2006, cat. no. 68, p. 144-145.
100 Master drawings from the Morgan Library & Museum. München : Hirmer, 2008, no. 70, repr. [Jennifer Tonkovich]

Catalog link:

See more information »

Artist page:

School:

Century:

Classification:

Department: