Nicolas de Poilly the Younger

The present sheet served as a preparatory drawing for a reproductive engraving published by François de Poilly after a painting by Antoine Coypel (1661–1722, Paris), depicting the death of King Louis IX during the Seventh Crusade before the gates of the city of Tunis (see Nicole Garnier, Antoine Coypel (1661–1772), Paris 1989, p. 102–103, cat. no. 23). Around 1686, Antoine Coypel received the commission to execute a cycle of paintings illustrating episodes from the life of the French monarch for the embellishment of the Chapelle Saint-Louis in Notre-Dame. Although these works were still recorded in inventories in 1790, they are now lost. Very few impressions appear to have survived of the engraving, which transmits the lower part of the composition; one example is held in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris (Bibl. Nat., Cabinet des Estampes, Db 8 folio, fol. 107).

Most probably the present sheet was done by Nicolas de Poilly the Younger. A nephew of François the Elder, this painter, engraver and publisher belonged to the ramified dynasty of artists originally from Abbeville, whose members distinguished themselves primarily as excellent engravers. Having learned the art of engraving from his father, Nicolas the Elder (1626–1696), Nicolas junior subsequently trained as a painter at the Académie Royale in Paris, where he studied under Pierre Mignard and Jean Jouvenet. In 1698 Poilly won the prestigious Prix de Rome, but his study visit to Italy ultimately came to nothing because, when it was time to award admissions, Jules Hardouin-Mansart, the freshly appointed head of the Bâtiments du Roi, gave preference to his personal favourites. In view of this turn in his fortunes Poilly decided to renounce painting and went on to make a name for himself as a draughtsman and engraver. Pierre-Jean Mariette noted the young artist’s outstanding gifts in his Abecedario. Poilly’s talents in this respect came to full fruition in the context of a commission he received from Pierre Crozat to supervise and execute the Receuil Crozat, an extensive volume of engravings published in 1729 which reproduced the finest paintings and drawings contained in that collection.

King Louis IX was revered at an early stage for his services to Christendom and canonised after his death. The composition depicts Louis on his deathbed, positioned between his son and heir, Philip, to the right, and two clerics to the left, from whom he will receive the sacrament of communion. The large-format sheet provides an exemplary illustration of Poilly’s abilities as a draughtsman. He demonstrates supreme confidence and the utmost clarity in sketching the faces, bodies and robes of the figures in red chalk on paper with grid lines drawn in pencil. He has mounted a piece of paper in order to rework the two priests on the left. Poilly’s drawing of the figures is both refined and elegant and the faces are rendered with sensitivity. The area around the bed and the view of the tents on the right have been washed with watercolours and heightened with opaque white. The unfinished work owes its great charm above all to its openness and incompleteness, which afford a valuable momentary insight into the way Poilly worked. From the collection of Ch. G. Vicomte Morel de Vindé, Paris (Lugt 2520).

EUR 9,500