Charles Nicolas Cochin

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Charles Nicolas Cochin
1715-1790
The Humpback (La Male Bosse)
ca. 1748
Red chalk counterproof on paper.
Full sheet: 6 1/8 x 5 inches (156 x 126 mm); design area: 5 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (139 x 114 mm)
Purchased as the gift of Charles Blyth.
1986.29:1
Notes: 

Cochin's counterproof was apparently pulled from a drawing preparatory for an illustration to the comte de Caylus's parody "Mémoires de l'Académie des colporteurs" (Paris, 1748). Caylus's volume, which he published anonymously, satirized the reports of the Royal Academy in the form of memoires from an academy of peddlers, or itinerant booksellers who often sold salacious or seditious printed material. An impression of the corresponding engraving, in the same direction as the counterproof, is also in the Morgan's collection and is mounted on the same mat (1986.29:2). The title refers to the peddler seen at right opening the door to soldiers as a seated young woman and her elderly companion share a drink.
The sheet was formerly in an album containing 102 drawings that were sold in thirty-four lots at Sotheby's, London, in 1970. Seguin's coat of arms appeared on the upper and lower covers of the red morocco binding of the volume.

Inscription: 

Inscribed at lower edge, in graphite, "La Male-bosse"; at left, "no. 143".
Watermark: none.

Provenance: 
L.D. Seguin, Président de la Chambre des Comptes de Paris; Comte N. A. Koucheleff Bezborodko, chancellor of Catherine the Great of Russia (Lugt 1629); J. P. van Suchtelen; Eugène von Wasserman; sale, Brussels, 1921, lot 954; Maggs Bros., Ltd., London.
Associated names: 

Blyth, Charles R. (Charles Ramsay), 1934- donor.
Seguin, L. D., former owner.
Bezborodko, N. A. Koucheleff, Comte, former owner.
Suchtelen, J. P. van, former owner.
Wasserman, Eugène von, former owner.

Bibliography: 

Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 330.

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