Jean-jacques Spoede 1680-1757, The Offering To Venus And The Offering To Bacchus Pair Of Paintings.

Jean-Jacques SPOEDE 1680-1757, pair of oil paintings on canvas, the offering to Venus and the offering to Bacchus, pair of oil paintings on canvas, carved and gilded wooden frame, size: 96x80cm
The pair of paintings that we are presenting are typical of the style of Jean-Jacques Spoede, a painter of Flemish origin whose production has continued to be rediscovered in recent years. Born in Antwerp around 1680, Spoede must have gone to Paris at the end of the 1690s, his student name appearing in the minutes of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture from 1700 (Anatole de Montaiglon, Procès-verbaux de l' Royal Academy…, Paris, 1880, volume III, p. 304). Having married in 1718 with Marguerite Lambert, the daughter of a jeweler, he joined the mastery of painters and sculptors (Neil Jeffarès, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, 2021, online text). Jean-Jacques Spoede was named professor, rector in 1748, and even perpetual rector, exhibiting his work at the Salons of the Académie de Saint-Luc (Jules Guiffrey, Histoire de l'Académie de Saint-Luc, Paris, 1904, p. 457). Stylistically, Spoede was particularly influenced by Watteau, of whom he was, Gersaint tells us, "the particular friend" (Edme-François Gersaint, Abrégé de la vie d'Antoine Watteau, Paris, 1744). More recent research has also shown how much Spoede was influenced by the style of Claude Gillot. Spoede's drawings which represent Commedia dell'arte actors indeed appear as variations on models by Gillot and Watteau (see on this question Martin Eidelberg, Jean-Jacques Spoede, Gillot's Forgotten Assistant and Watteau's Special Friend, December 2020 , online text). Now, it is obvious that the memory of certain Bacchic Festivals of Gillot is obvious here, although the reduction of proportions of the characters is typical of Spoede. In fact, our pair of paintings offers blatant analogies with the mythological works of Spoede, particularly the one that was in the Belgian art trade in 2014. Beyond the relationship of scale between space and figures, we notice again, at the foot of the statue of the mythological divinity perched on a pedestal, the characters carrying offerings. We also note the way in which the painter uses vegetation to act as a screen and this form of visual interaction play, as if the figures constituted the extension of the sculptures, and vice versa.

The best proof of the relationship of our pair of paintings to the art of Jean-Jacques Spoede is provided by the catalog of the Salomon-Pierre Prousteau sale of June 5, 1769, in Paris (Lugt 1766), in which we read, under number 34: “Jean-Jacques Spoede. A Feast at Bacchus & a Sacrifice in honor of Venus: these two pieces rich in composition & which have pleasure, are painted on canvas, 27 inches high by 33 wide (sold for 150 pounds (the pair ) in Duhamel). Beyond the correspondence with the author's name and the two subjects, the dimensions indicated (27 inches, or 72.9 cm high, and 33 inches, or 89 cm wide) are similar to those of our pair of paintings mythological.
Thanks to Mr. François MARANDET for his expertise.