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Lot Essay
This composition is based on a painting that Nicolas Poussin executed in 1639 and is today in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Rouen (inv. 1866.1; C. Wright, Poussin Paintings. A Catalogue Raisonné, London, 2007, no. 112, ill.). The subject, Venus presenting arms to Aeneas, is inspired by Virgil's Aeneid: Venus, borne by putti and a swan, leads her son Aeneas to the arms forged for him by Vulcan (fig. 1). Poussin made the painting for his friend and dealer Jacques Stella, who was himself an artist. Together with being a successful painter, Stella had set up a print workshop in the Louvre where he trained his sister Madeleine’s children who moved from their native Lyons to Paris in 1654 to live and work with him.
Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella was the eldest of Stella’s nieces, and upon the artist’s death she became, at only 21, the head of the family workshop. Claudine worked closely with her sisters, Antoinette and Françoise, and brother, Antoine. The Bouzonnet-Stella sisters, particularly Antoinette and Claudine, were successful in making print reproductions of their uncle’s paintings, but later Claudine specialized on her own in reproducing works by Poussin (V. Meyer, ‘Six women engravers in France in the 17th century’, in Femmes artistes à l’âge classique. Arts du dessin-peinture, sculpture, gravure, Paris, 2021, p. 47).
Poussin’s painting remained in the Stella family for several generations, and was inherited by Claudine, who owned many paintings and thousands of drawings, as we learn from her will and inventory. The present drawing carefully reproduces Poussin’s painting and was probably made to be translated into print as indicated by the meticulous squaring in black chalk. It is very likely that the drawing was made by Claudine, although it is also important to note that many works produced in the workshop were the fruit of anonymous collaboration among the siblings and we know that Antoine Bouzonnet-Stella helped his sisters with preparatory drawings for prints (ibid., p. 48).
Today the only known print after the painting is an engraving by Alexis Loir (1640-1713) published by Jean Mariette (fig. 2; G. Wildenstein, Les graveurs de Poussin au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 1957, no. 124, ill.). According to Wildenstein this was most likely the print that the artist presented to be accepted into the Academy in 1678.
Fig. 1. Nicolas Poussin, Venus presenting Arms to Aeneas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Fig. 2. Alexis Loir, after Nicolas Poussin, Venus presenting Arms to Aeneas. Médiathèque centrale Emile Zola, Montpellier.
Claudine Bouzonnet-Stella was the eldest of Stella’s nieces, and upon the artist’s death she became, at only 21, the head of the family workshop. Claudine worked closely with her sisters, Antoinette and Françoise, and brother, Antoine. The Bouzonnet-Stella sisters, particularly Antoinette and Claudine, were successful in making print reproductions of their uncle’s paintings, but later Claudine specialized on her own in reproducing works by Poussin (V. Meyer, ‘Six women engravers in France in the 17th century’, in Femmes artistes à l’âge classique. Arts du dessin-peinture, sculpture, gravure, Paris, 2021, p. 47).
Poussin’s painting remained in the Stella family for several generations, and was inherited by Claudine, who owned many paintings and thousands of drawings, as we learn from her will and inventory. The present drawing carefully reproduces Poussin’s painting and was probably made to be translated into print as indicated by the meticulous squaring in black chalk. It is very likely that the drawing was made by Claudine, although it is also important to note that many works produced in the workshop were the fruit of anonymous collaboration among the siblings and we know that Antoine Bouzonnet-Stella helped his sisters with preparatory drawings for prints (ibid., p. 48).
Today the only known print after the painting is an engraving by Alexis Loir (1640-1713) published by Jean Mariette (fig. 2; G. Wildenstein, Les graveurs de Poussin au XVIIe siècle, Paris, 1957, no. 124, ill.). According to Wildenstein this was most likely the print that the artist presented to be accepted into the Academy in 1678.
Fig. 1. Nicolas Poussin, Venus presenting Arms to Aeneas. Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen.
Fig. 2. Alexis Loir, after Nicolas Poussin, Venus presenting Arms to Aeneas. Médiathèque centrale Emile Zola, Montpellier.