Charles De La Fosse 1636-1716 The Sleep (armida?)

Charles de la Fosse 1636-1716 Sleep (Armida?) Oil on canvas 130 x 86 cm (size of the table) A chalk drawing has survived with the sleeping Rinaldo (Snite Museum of Art), to which this painting is oriented compositional (the picture in drawing at Basildon Park, Berkshire). See in particular the many red chalk drawings of his female nudes, with the bottom perspective view that frequently appears, as well as the often masculine-looking female hands, like the right hand of the one sleeping here. Charles de La Fosse (* June 15, 1636 in Paris; † December 13, 1716 ibid). Also spelled Delafosse and more rarely Lafosse Very young, he entered the studio of the painter Charles Le Brun as a pupil and worked with him in the 1650s on the decorations of the St-Sulpice seminary in Paris and the Hôtel Lambert. On and with the recommendation of his teacher, he stayed in Italy from 1658 to 1663. He studied the old masters in Rome until 1660, then went to Parma, and finally spent a long time in Venice, a city that marked him. . On his return, Le Brun employed him in the Tuileries Palace (destroyed) and in the ceremonial room, called "Grand Appartement", of the Palace of Versailles. In 1673, with the "Rape of Prosperina", he was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which, a year later, made him professor and appointed him to the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. Thanks to the support of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, de La Fosse became director of the academy in 1707, and its chancellor in 1715. Between 1689 and 1692, Lord Montagu called him to England and entrusted him with the decoration of his palace in Bloomsbury Square (destroy). At the end of his life, he was an almost permanent regular at the Parisian mansion of art collector Pierre Crozat and his country house in Montmorency, where, through him, Antoine Watteau had also found accommodation and where many other artists and art connoisseurs met. Charles de La Fosse died in 1716 at the age of 80 in the Parisian palace of Crozat, rue Richelieu. His main works are the large paintings on the dome ceiling of the Cathedral of Les Invalides in Paris, depicting Saint Louis handing over his sword to Christ, and the wall painting of the vault above the high altar in the Chapel of Versailles. The latter was created in four months. He also left many paintings for churches, monasteries and palaces. The sometimes slightly flared shapes of his compositions and the almost non-existent study of nature are offset by the strong, brilliant and often golden coloring of Venetian inspiration. Inv. 3.056 7,850 €