Nouvelles hypothèses sur la genèse du décor peint de la salle à manger de l’hôtel Crozat

• Main Author: François Marandet
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles 2006-03-01
• Series: Bulletin du Centre de Recherche du Château de Versailles
• Subjects: grand décor; patronage; Antoine Watteau; Charles de La Fosse; Pierre Crozat; Seasons (representation)
• Online Access: http://journals.openedition.org/crcv/15445

The decoration of the dining room in Pierre Crozat’s Parisian residence appears to be the most famous and unconventional artistic undertaking in the history of early eighteenth-century French art. Shortly before his death in 1716 Charles de La Fosse had begun various projects for the decoration, but it would be completed by a very different artist, Antoine Watteau. Like La Fosse he was to represent each of the four seasons in the form of oval compositions. The identification of a set of drawings by Nicolas Vleughels dating from around 1716 and depicting The Four Seasons, whose format clearly recalls that of over-doors, suggests that he may have also been approached to realize this painted decoration. Nicolas Vleughels is known to have been close to both Pierre Crozat and Antoine Watteau. The rediscovery of an oval painting depicting Spring by Charles de La Fosse is a further opportunity to explore the history of this commission, which seems to have been inspired by a masterpiece belonging to Crozat, Rubens’s Bacchus, now in the Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg.