All the world’s a stage: actor Lionel Erdogan selects highlights from our Paris Old Masters sales

It is reported that when Stanley Kubrick made the historical drama Barry Lyndon, the fastidious filmmaker spent hours posing his actors exactly as if they were in an 18th-century oil painting. The resulting movie resembled a picture by Thomas Gainsborough: lyrical and luminous, with a cool detachment.

That is something Lionel Erdogan appreciates. The French actor once took the part of the card sharp in Georges de la Tour’s canvas Le Tricheur à l’as de carreau for a television series that brought paintings to life. ‘I had to unlock its mysteries and make it my own,’ he recalls of the famous work that hangs in the Louvre.

The 40-year-old thespian, known for films such as La Révolution and the hit police procedural Engrenages (known as Spiral to English-speaking audiences), is currently appearing as Orlando in Shakespeare’s As You Like It at the Théâtre Hébertot in Paris. Le Figaro newspaper described his Robin Hood-like portrayal of Rosalind’s lover as ‘magnificent’.

To mark the launch of the Maîtres Anciens: Peintures — Dessins — Sculptures sale on 21 November 2024 in Paris, and Maîtres Anciens: Peintures — Dessins — Sculptures, Online, open for bidding until 22 November, Christie’s invited Erdogan to choose works from the auctions to display at the Théâtre Hébertot. The beautiful old theatre in the 17th arrondissement is steeped in history, and celebrated for its staging of Jean Cocteau’s Orpheus in 1926 (when it was known as the Théâtre des Arts) with costumes by Coco Chanel.

Taking a break between performances, Erdogan admits he’s always been a little intimidated by classical art, explaining that his view of it is marked by a mixture of respect and fascination. ‘Beyond the object itself, its emotional power and its beauty, it is the history that gives art its power and magnitude,’ he says.

His selection of a portrait of the English aristocrat William Carey, painted around 1580, is a case in point. A nobleman in the court of Henry VIII and husband of Anne Boleyn’s sister Mary, the courtier was witness to one of the most seismic moments in English history when the king made his break with Rome. Carey’s face is filled with caution and fear, his eyes seemingly on the watch for some looming conspiracy.

Many of Erdogan's choices relate to the theatre and its enchantment, and the Carey portrait is no exception: court life was a performance, albeit a treacherous one ruled by a mercurial king. The actor also makes the connection between a memento mori painting of a skull from the 17th century and Shakespeare’s Hamlet, with its famous lament for the late king’s jester: ‘Alas, poor Yorick!’

Less surprising is Erdogan’s choice of bronzes from the Quentin collection. The actor first discovered classical art as a young boy on a visit to the Vatican in Rome. He considers the Florentine artist Massimiliano Soldani-Benzi an heir to the Renaissance tradition, describing his figure of Apollo Musagetes, from 1706, as ‘heroic’ in his nakedness. ‘An actor must also, in a way, bare himself to the audience,’ he observes.

There is a similar quality in the powerful drawing by Jean-Louis-André-Théodore Gericault depicting two naked men and a horse preparing for the annual riderless race between the Piazza del Popolo and Piazza Venezia in Rome.

Key to any actor’s performance is the design of the set, says Erdogan: ‘When you first explore the set, you put yourself in the audience’s shoes and say to yourself, “This is what the audience is going to see. How am I going to be able to move in this space? What image will this project?” Then, when you are on stage, it becomes instinctive: you need to touch, move and play with the set, which becomes your partner in the game.’

Erdogan considers the simple hallway with a checkerboard floor at the centre of Interior of a Mansion with a Table — thought to be by Pieter Willemsz. van der Stock (active circa 1593-after 1650) — as having the atmosphere of an empty stage. Many of the artists of the Dutch Golden Age were masters of the interior. They created quietly captivating scenes that pulled back the curtains to expose the mysteries of domestic life. What they revealed was a world as rich in drama as any theatre.

Maîtres Anciens: Peintures — Dessins — Sculptures, Online is live for bidding until 22 November 2024. Maîtres Anciens: Peintures — Dessins — Sculptures takes place on 21 November at Christie’s in Paris, with the pre-sale view from 14 to 21 November