Abstract
The most reliable method to use in determining the authentic style of an artist is to collect initially a group of works by him whose authenticity is in part, at least, based on extra-stylistic evidence or on very solid tradition. In the case of Lafage one does well to turn first to the series of bacchanals and triumphs etched by him in Rome and copied only a few years later by Ertinger, a group whose genuineness is hardly open to much question (Fig. 1).1 One characteristic that can be detected in several of these is the insertion of the artist’s own portrait, easily recognizable by the distinctive feature of the flattened nose. He does not, in the manner of a Renaissance artist, simply include himself among the personages of the scene; but, rather, he makes use of the delightfully baroque conceit of casually placing in the foreground a scroll or plaque on which his portrait or, more properly, caricature is depicted. At other times he varies this procedure and places his portrait on a standard which some nymph or satyr holds randomly aloft amid the company.
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References
See page 12 The plate illustrated is listed in Robert-Dumesnil, Le peintre-graveur français,II, 153, no. 9, the second state. The copy by Ertinger is in reverse. A rather poor drawing after it is in the Louvre and is listed by Jean Guiffrey and Pierre Marcel, Inventaire général des dessins du Musée du Louvre,VII (Paris, 1912), ISO. 5437.
Lugt, Marques de collections,pp. 557-559, 544–549. These and other collectors are discussed in more detail in the last chapter.
This appears likely by comparison with the specimens of Crozat’s handwriting reproduced by Lugt, Marques de collections,p. 564.
In Fig. 4 the nude in the very center and slightly to the left seems to be the goddess Diana (note the quivers hanging from the tree close by). She is directing the two nymphs below her who are forcibly removing the garments of a third nymph, presumedly Callisto. Fig. 3 is much more of a problem. At the left a woman, attended by a physician in the form of a satyr, is giving birth to a child. She is surrounded by numerous figures including Diana who is present in her capacity as goddess of birth. The presence of Cupid beside the woman and the man gnawing his hand in anguish behind her lead me to identify her as Venus. For a prominent feature of the picture is a forge and just below the grieving man is a hammer, from which details one may conclude that he is probably Vulcan. Thus his gesture is not one of sympathetic pain but of rage since the child, Aenaeas, is not his but was fathered by Anchises who may be the athletic young man in the center. One very puzzling detail is that if one looks closely it can be observed that a breech birth is taking place, that is, the child is emerging feet first rather than in the normal manner of head first. Nowhere have I been able to find any reference to Aenaeas being a breech birth nor to my knowledge is this circumstance mentioned in connection with any personage in classical mythology.
Mariette, who was extremely familiar with Lafage’s drawings, praises Ertinger’s work as being a faithful rendition of the artist’s style. “Ce qui a été exécuté par Ertinger est une copie très fidèle des dessins de l’auteur,” Abecedario, Ill, 4o.
Published and reproduced by Blunt, French Drawings,no. rrs, plate Hz. He suggests that it may have been intended as the frontispiece to the series of illustrations to Ovid also to be found at Windsor.
This drawing was etched by Charles Dufresne in 1791 and published in Paris in 1795 as part of a collection of prints of various drawings in the possession of the elder Pierre François Basan. Information communicated by Dr. J. Q. van Regteren Altena.
Mariette, Abecedario,III, 36.
Mariette, Description sommaire des dessins du cabinet de M. Crozat,p. 123. The buyer and the price are from the annotated copy in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
This is the second Gérard Audran (1640–1703), the most famous member of this prolific family of engravers. His graphic style is comparable to that of Le Brun in painting, and Colbert made him official engraver to the crown. He had great influence during his lifetime, and many of the illustrators of the eighteenth century utilized his general technique. Van der Bruggen was approparently clever enough to induce Audran to engrave three drawings for the projected album. However, this and the other drawings which Audran chose to copy are characteristic of his conservative academic taste, and his prints are very different from the far more spirited ones of Ertinger. Probably they were done not long before the album was published in 1689, a period when royal commissions were diminishing and when the former associates of Colbert were in disfavor at court. See Robert-Dumesnil, Le peintre-graveur français, IX (Paris, 1865), 254–256, nos. r, 4, 5.
H. Lugt, Marques de collections,p. 436.
Emile Dacier, “Catalogues de ventes et Livrets de Salons illustrés et annotés par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin: 13, Catalogue de la vente Calvière (1779),” Gazette des Beaux-Arts,sixth series, XLIV (July-August, 1954), 34. The listing is on page 65, number 438, of the catalogue itself. Likewise, one of the two drawings paired as number 439 may be the signed Entombment in the Louvre. It is specifically stated that it is on vellum.
Another drawing that could be included for its authenticity and historical value is the Marriage Feast of Bacchus and Ariadne (Guiffrey and Marcel, Inventaire des dessins du Louvre,VII, no. 5360), which bears the marks of both Mariette and his fellow dealer and amateur, Gabriel Huquier. It was earlier engraved by Ertinger for Van der Bruggen’s album. It is presumedly one of the eight drawings listed in the catalogue of Crozat’s collection under no. 1038: “Huit, composant ensemble une frise, où est representé le triomphe de Bacchus et d’Ariane. Il y en a des estampes gravées par Ertinger.” The annotated copy of the catalogue notes that they were purchased by Mariette for one hundred livres. Two other drawings in this series, the Education of Bacchus and the Return of Bacchus from India,are in the Albertina (inv. nos. 11898, n899). They likewise bear Mariette’s mark and were later in the possession of the Prince de Ligne. See Adam Bartsch, Catalogue raisonné des dessins originaux du cabinet de feu le Prince Charles de Ligne (Vienna, 5794), p. 353, nos. 8, 9; Mariette, Abecedario, III,39.
Charles de Tolnay, History and Technique of Old Master Drawings,ch. III.
I have particularly in mind a fine landscape drawing by Titian in the Albertina. See Beschreibender Katalog der Handzeichnungen in der Graphischen Sammlung Albertina, I (Vienna, 5926), no. 42.
Emile Mâle, L’Art religieux du XVIIe siècle,2nd ed. (Paris, 5955), p. 29o.
Otto Grautoff, Nicolas Poussin (Leipzig, 1914), II, 185.
Is. Cesare Ripa, Iconologia (Padua, 5615), p. 429.
In the National Museum in Stockholm there is a study by I,afage of this famous statue. It comes from the Tessin collection.
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Whitman, N.T. (1963). The Style. In: The Drawings of Raymond Lafage. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-0941-1_2
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