Achievement: La Hyre, Laurent de (Paris (75), February 27, 1606 - Paris (75), December 28, 1656) (Painter)
Allegory of Astronomy
Allegory of Astronomy
Realization : 1649
Area: Painting
Technique(s): Canvas (oil painting)
Dimensions : H. 104 cm ; W. 218.5 cm
Inventory no.: 69.1.1
Photo credit(s) :
Lombard, Mathieu
Lauginie, François
Cartel
In 1649, the maître des requêtes Gédéon Tallemant commissioned La Hyre to paint a suite representing the seven Liberal Arts to decorate a room in his Parisian townhouse on rue de l'Angoûmois in the Marais district. Installed in the upper part of the walls, recessed above carved panelling, the painted cycle was dismantled and sold around 1760, and is now dispersed in several museums (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; National Gallery, London) and private collections. This decorative cycle belongs to the artist's mature period. Trained in the vein of late Mannerism, La Hyre radically altered his style from the 1640s onwards, integrating into his compositions the search for ideal, sobriety and elegance that characterized mid-century Parisian painting. During the regency of Anne of Austria (1643 - 1661), Parisian painters were moving towards a calmer art, drawing most of their inspiration from antique models or engravings after Raphael. Nicolas Poussin's stay in Paris between 1640 and 1642 also left its mark, gradually distancing painters from the Baroque style of Simon Vouet, whose studio still monopolized most commissions. This allegory of Astronomy, a gentle winged figure with a round face and delicate gestures, seated amidst the symbols of her discipline (the compass, the armillary sphere, the sundial and an ephemeris written on a loose leaf) and dressed in a blue cloak evoking the firmament, is one of the most representative effigies of this new classical inclination referred to as "Parisian Atticism".
Provenance
Commissioned by Gédéon Tallemant (1613-1668) for the bedroom of his hotel, 1649.
Paris, Gédéon Tallemant collection.
Purchase on sale, 1760.
Paris, Brunet collection (?-1830).
Purchase in Brunet's after-death sale (Paris, 15 rue de Vaugirard, March 15-17, 1830, no. 6), 1830.
Pre-empted at public auction by the French State for an acquisition financed by the city of Orléans from war damage appropriations (Paris, Hôtel Drouot, December 1, 1969), 1969.
Deposited by the State with the Musée des Beaux-arts d'Orléans, 1970.
Transfer of full ownership to the city of Orléans, 2020.
School
France
Location
Museum of Fine Arts
2nd floor
Room: France in the Great Century