CIRCA 1726, AFTER DESIGNS BY CLAUDE AUDRAN LE JEUNE, ANTOINE WATTEAU AND ALEXANDRE-FRANÇOIS DESPORTES

Originally conceived as a set of twelve, Claude Audran le Jeune (d. 1734) designed this series in 1708 and 1709 while he was executing the decoration of the apartments of the Dauphin, later King Louis XV, at the château de Meudon. An entry in the Comptes des Bâtiments indicates the creation of the series: ‘Année 1709. Maison Royales-Peinture: à Claude Audran, autre peintre, pour un tableau représentant un bureau où des singes sont à table; posé à Marly en 1708 et 1709, pour le nouveau batiment de Monseigneur à Meudon 495 livres’.

It was during the same period that the young Antoine Watteau (d. 1721), then just 23 years old, worked under Audran. It is probable that he collaborated on this project, while it was Alexandre-François Desportes (d. 1743) who supplied the animal figures. Rather unusually, the original designs do not appear to have remained at Gobelins thereafter as they are not recorded in the detailed inventory taken at the workshop in 1736.

The set woven for the Dauphin, which contained gold and silver-thread, was divided into three panels, one with six joined panels and the other two with three joined panels each. That suite is today in the Mobilier National in Paris with the exception of one of the smaller panels depicting October, November and December that was already noted missing in 1830.

A further Mois Grotesques set that is almost certainly of the same smaller size is in the Yellow Room at the Palazzo Doria Pamphilj in Rome, see H. Göbel, Die Wandteppiche und ihre Manufakturen in Frankreich Italien Spanien und Portugal, Leipzig, 1928, vol. II, fig. 132.

The edito princeps of these magnificent tapestries represents the Grand Dauphin, the future Louis XV, adopting his 'Apollo' role as patron and Lord of the Arts of France in the furnishing of his apartments at the château de Meudon. The Sun deity Apollo, as the leader of Mt. Parnassus' Artistic Inspiration, presides over these Olympic deities symbolising the Months of the Year. Richly filigreed and coloured after the antique fashion associated with the Parnassus grotto, they are named as the 'Douze Mois Grotesques par Bandes'. Their richly flowered and filiated pilasters or 'paned' tablets, display the deities within triumphal baldaquins that are labelled by Zodiac medallions and accompanied by emblematic badges and symbols. They are designed in a graceful Roman form that evolved from the Louis Quatorze 'antique' style associated with the 'Oeuvres' of Jean Bérain (d. 1711) as 'Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi'. This new fashion was introduced by the court artist Claude Audran (d. 1734), whose decorative ornament was already described in 1693 as surpassing that of Bérain as being, 'plus exquis et plus svelte'.