Solemn entry of Monseigneur de Pâris into Orléans, 1734

Charles-Joseph Natoire trained with Louis Galloche (1670-1761) and François Lemoyne (1688-1737). He was awarded first prize at the Académie in 1721 and left for Rome in 1723. He returned to Paris in 1729, where he began a brilliant career.He was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1734, and became painter to the king two years later. Natoire produced large-scale decorative compositions, mythological and historical cycles, and tapestry cartoons for the Gobelins and Beauvais manufactures. In 1751, after Jean-François de Troy (4679-1752), he became director of the Académie de France in Rome.

This sketch was made in preparation for the monumental painting Natoire presented at the Salon of 1745: the work was destined for the Episcopal palace in Orléans (today's Hôtel Dupanloup), where it still stands, and has recently been restored. The sketch is close to the final composition, and is characteristic of the painter's style, in its chromatic range, monumentality and theatricality, as seen in his tapestry cartoons produced in the years 1740-1750, particularly in the Don Quixote series.

The work evokes the solemn ceremony organized by the city of Orléans on March 2, 1734 to welcome its new bishop, Nicolas-Joseph de Pâris (1680-1757). The procession makes its way to the cathedral, stopping near the old Porte de Bourgogne for the traditional rite of pardoning prisoners by the new bishop. The bishop is placed in the center of the canvas, on a portable chair placed on a carpet. In front of him, the dean of the chapter kneels and presents him with the book of the Gospels for the oath of the royal judges, placed to the right of the composition, in the company of the magistrates, an assembly in which we can perhaps recognize the famous Orléans jurisconsults Jousse and Pothier.