?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 3,000 - $ 5,000
GERARD AUDRAN (Lyon 1640-1703 Paris) Christ Carrying the Cross.
Brush and gray ink and wash with pen and brown ink on cream laid paper, circa 1685. 480x670 mm; 19x26 1/2 inches.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Audran's preparatory drawing for his engraving of the same scene after the 1684 oil painting by Pierre Mignard (1612-1695) now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. There is also a red chalk preparatory drawing by Mignard for this painting in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Mignard's painting was widely acclaimed by contemporary writers and entered the collection of Louis XIV as a gift of Jean-Baptiste Colbert's son, the Marquis de Seigneley. Colbert had been the backer of Charles Le Brun, the chief court painter to Louis XIV. Le Brun's death in 1683 paved the way for Mignard's ascendancy as the Premier Peintre and director of the Académie Royale in 1690. Audran's engraving of Mignard's highly esteemed painting would have further promoted his popularity at the time.
