AY 136
JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER
Lille 1636 - 1699 London
A still life of roses, lilies, poppies, morning glory, delphinium and other flowers in a glass bowl on a stone ledge
One of a pair
Canvas: 17 ½ x 45 ¼ in / 44.5 x 114.9 cm
Provenance:
Galerie Cailleux, Paris, by 1954
Galerie Cailleux, Paris, 1974
Private collection, USA
Exhibited:
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Vier Eeuwen Stilleven in Frankrijk, 10th July-20th September 1954, no.26
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Louis XIV, Fastes et Décors, May-October 1960, no.532
Caen, Hôtel d’Escoville, JB Blin de Fontenay (1653-1715), 10th July-31st October 1965, no.1
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Fleurs et Fruits, 1968, no.12
Literature:
M Faré, La Nature Morte en France, Geneva 1963, vol. II, no.241, illus.
SH Pavière, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer 1636-1699, 1966, p.22, no.87, pl.1
M and F Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France: Le XVII Siècle, 1974, p.295, illus.
C Salvi, D’Après Nature: La Nature Morte en France au XVIIe Siècle, 2000, p.184, illus.
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer worked on many decorative flower- and fruitpieces for the French Royal palaces from the 1660s to the early 1690s, before spending the last decade of his life in England, painting for the Court and highest aristocracy. Monnoyer rarely dated his paintings and a chronology of his oeuvre is difficult to construct, but the painterly sensuousness and sensitivity to the shapes and textures of flowers shown in this pair of works suggest that they derive from the height of his career in France. The low viewpoint and elongated shape of these paintings indicate that they were intended as overdoors. In an era of expanding empires and the pursuit of scientific knowledge about the natural world, gardening was raised to an ever greater degree of refinement, particularly in the royal palaces of Louis XIV. Monnoyer’s painted floral decorations, often placed in ground-floor salons, brought the garden into the house.
This Still life of lilies reflects the dancing sinuousness of line and baroque energy which caused Monnoyer’s contemporaries to marvel at the perfect mirror which he put up to nature. An explosion of light bursts from the centre of the painting, with the curved petals of the white lilies and the whorls of pale pink roses offset by the blue of the morning glory. Poppies curve their heads in drooping languor, while orange martagon lilies flame in the shadows. The poppies are Papaver somniferum, opium poppies associated with night and sleep, deliberately juxtaposed with the brisk blue and white of the morning glory. Likewise, lilies and roses (symbols of the Virgin in Catholic societies) are rivals in sweetness of scent and beauty of form. Monnoyer places his bouquet in a delicate glass vase against a backdrop of yellow damask, an echo of the richly-coloured, elaborate and costly textiles which were an essential part of the decoration of a seventeenth century house.
AR 319
JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER
Lille 1636 - 1699 London
A still life of viburnum, tulips, peonies, poppy anemones and other flowers in a glass bowl on a stone ledge
One of a pair
Canvas: 17 ¾ x 45 ¼ in / 45 x 115 cm
Provenance:
Galerie Cailleux, Paris, by 1954
Private collection, Paris, by 1974
Private collection, USA
Exhibited:
Saint-Etienne, Musée des Beaux-Arts, M Allemand, Natures Mortes de L’Antiquité au XVIIIème, 2nd May-7th June 1954, p.17, no.36, pl.II
Rotterdam, Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Vier Eeuwen Stilleven in Frankrijk, 10th July-20th September 1954, no.27
Paris, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Louis XIV, Fastes et Décors, May-October 1960, no.531
Caen, Hôtel d’Escoville, JB Blin de Fontenay (1653-1715), 10th July-31st October 1965, no.1
Paris, Galerie Cailleux, Fleurs et Fruits, 1968, no.12
Literature:
M Faré, La Nature Morte en France, 1963, vol. II, no.240
SH Pavière, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer 1636-1699, 1966, p.22, no.87, pl.1
M and F Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France: Le XVII Siècle, 1974, illus. p.295
C Salvi, D’Après Nature: La Nature Morte en France au XVIIe Siècle, 2000, p.184, illus. in colour
Monnoyer gives an especial lightness and delicacy to this pair of overdoors by his choice of glass vases from which a rich array of flowers spill. In this second painting, the brightest focus is provided by flowers of viburnum, or snowballs, a fragrant shrub of the northern hemisphere. The tulips are shown in full maturity, their lavishly striped petals like luxurious textiles, their twisting shapes full of movement. The rich, sonorous colours - with blue, white and red flowers pushing forward out of the shadows of yellow silk damask curtains – were designed to compete with lavishly panelled contemporary interiors and furniture covered in elaborately-patterned silks, damasks and velvet. Monnoyer trained in Antwerp and he brings a certain Flemish sensuality to his treatment of flowers, along with a French delicacy of observation. Although the flowers appear to undulate artlessly from the vase, they are in fact carefully composed to balance cool and warm hues and to lead the eye back and forth across the canvas. As Dézailler d’Argenville later wrote of Monnoyer: ‘sa main savante faisait naitre des fleurs qui ne fleurissaient point, mais ces beautés si sujettes à se flétrir, par le moyen de son pinceau acquéraient l’immortalité ainsi que son auteur’.
JEAN-BAPTISTE MONNOYER
Lille 1636 - 1699 London
Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer is famed for his decorative flowerpieces, found in many country houses in France and England. Born in Lille in 1636, Monnoyer first studied in Antwerp, before going to Paris before 1650, where he rapidly established his reputation working on the decoration of the Hôtel Lambert. In 1665 he was reçu as a member of the Academy; in 1673 he exhibited four paintings at the first Salon. He rose to prominence in the Académie and was made Conseiller in 1679. Monnoyer’s first wife was the sister of the history painter Pierre Mosnier; in 1667 he married Marie Pétré.
Patronized by Charles Le Brun, Louis XIV’s Court painter, Monnoyer was employed to decorate the royal palaces at Versailles, Vincennes, Trianon, Meudon and Marly. From 1666 he also designed floral motifs and borders for the Gobelins and Beauvais tapestry works, often collaborating with his son-in-law Jean-Baptiste Belin de Fontenay (1653-1715).
In 1690 the Ralph Montagu, later 1st Duke of Montagu, English Ambassador to Louis XIV, persuaded Monnoyer to accompany him to England for four months, where he won immediate acclaim, painting flowerpieces and still lifes for the aristocracy. Monnoyer returned to London in 1692 and remained there until his death in 1699. His works decorated Montagu’s Boughton, Northamptonshire and Montagu House, London (now the site of the British Museum); Burlington House, Windsor Castle, Kensington Palace and Hampton Court; his patrons included Queen Mary, Charles Beauclerk, 1st Duke of St Albans and Charles Howard, 3rd Earl of Carlisle. Monnoyer also added flowers to Godfrey Kneller’s portraits. A number of engravings were made after Monnoyer’s paintings, extending his reputation beyond the circle of his aristocratic patrons.
During his prolific career, Monnoyer executed easel paintings and designs for overdoors and overmantels; his works show an awareness of Flemish and Italian baroque flower painting, imbued with a French delicacy and an all-pervasive freshness of vision. His son Antoine Monnoyer (b.1672) assisted him with commissions in England.
The work of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer is represented at Versailles; Hampton Court; the Hermitage, St Petersburg; the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Louvre, Paris; the Musée Fabre, Montpellier and the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.