Nymphe Et Putto Bachiques, 1784. Tableau Attibué à Caresme

Bacchic Nymph and Putto, 1784. With a light and graceful spirit, this work imbued with tender suavity stages in a green setting silhouetted on the right of a fountain in the shape of a Venusian shell a lascivious Maenad pleasantly accosted by a little Love. Coiled against his shoulder, the divine and playful toddler seems to share the state of slight intoxication to which the young woman surrenders, smiling. Lying, undressed, on a rocky mound surrounded by opulent draperies which serves as a bed, this one displays, in a deliberately arched posture, full, quivering forms; her ecstatic eyes, her greedy mouth, her rosy cheeks evoke the intoxication aroused by the heavy bunch of grapes which she holds in an evasive attitude with her right hand. Staking out the composition, vines and bunches of grapes, amphora, thyrsus and Basque tambourine - attributes signifying the divine presence of Bacchus and his procession - place the intoxicated Maenad and her little sidekick (Bacchus child?) Within a place full of voluptuous felicity. Dominated by brown, ocher and green tones enhanced with luminous and dazzling spots of gold, golden or milky white, purple, the color palette accentuates the pleasurable nature of this composition placed under the auspices of Bacchus. Terran divinity, emblematic for the French eighteenth century of the Enlightenment of fertile Nature and the joy of living to which Jacques-Philippe Caresme granted in his pictorial work (La Bacchante enivrée, 1780, engraved by Jean-François Janinet), engraved (Les Plaisirs bacchiques, set of colored etchings produced between 1760-1789) or drawn in large part. Our oil on paper is probably part of this "set" of "autonomous" works produced "by the artist between 1763 and 1784 - as Marie Yvonneau-Fournier notes (see Bibliography) - not for the purpose of preparatory studies for paintings but "to be exhibited and sold". Oil on paper (mounted on panel). Signed on the back, top, left Caresme 1784. Period: French school of the second half of the 18th century Good condition. Has retained all the freshness of its chromaticism. Dimensions: 23 x 21 cm -With frame: 40x 43 cm. Provenance: Private collection. _________________________________________________ CARESME Jacques-Philippe Painter, draftsman and engraver, born in Paris on February 25, 1734, died in the same city on March 1, 1796 (Ec. Fr.) Approved in 1766 as a history painter at the Royal Academy where he acceded in 1753 as a pupil of his cousin Charles-Antoine Coypel (1694-1752), this artist formatted with the kind and charming know-how of François Boucher ( 1703-1770) had a promising start.Noted during his first performance at the Salon of 1767, Louis XV commissioned two floral-themed door covers from Caresme intended to adorn the antechamber of the Petit Trianon at the Château de Versailles: Métamorphose de the nymph Mint changed into a plant, signed and dated 1772 and, Myrrha metamorphosed into a shrub. However, in 1778 he was to lose his place and status of Academician, for lack of having provided a reception piece. Painter with very flexible talent but also very remarkable engraver, Jean-Philippe Caresme will exhibit at the Salons in addition to portraits, still lifes, "mythological works both amiable and light, whose erotic energy and sensual color testify to a look on Rubens, artist among the most appreciated of France of the Lights "and, more particularly scenes of Bacchanalia which he had made a specialty. Many of his scenes were popularized by engravings of Bonnet, Demarteau or Janinet. Caresme also left a few religious subjects (Sainte-Famille, Nantes), historical subjects dealing with the past (Saint-Louis receiving the Crown of Thorns, La Rochelle; The death of Duglescin, of unknown location) or also echoing revolutionary events ( Bravery of Parisian women on the day of October 5, 1789; Last words of MarieJoséph Chalier in the prisons of Lyon, July 17, 1793, Paris, Musée du Louvre). Other works by this artist are owned by Parisian or provincial museum institutions. We will mention: L'offrande à Pan, watercolor gouache (Paris, Petit Palais), The Guitar Player (Paris, Cognac-Jay Museum); Bathers (Bordeaux, Musée des Beaux-Arts), Centaure et Bacchante (Dijon, Musée Magnin) and a Metamorphosis of Daphné (Musée de Toul). Literature: - Yvonneau-Fournier, Marie, The identity of the artist in the 18th century. The case of Jean-Philippe Caresme (1734-1796), painter to the King, Master's thesis, Panthéon-Sorbonne University, 2015. - Renouvier, Jules, Anatole de Montaiglon, History of Art during the Revolution, 1789-1806, pp. 177 and following.