The Master of the Ovals

Probably François-Hippolyte Lélu;

Sale, Paris, 25 June 1800, lot 40 ('Quarante-huit Sujets de l'Ancien Testament, dessinés à la plume, laves de bistre, rehaussés de blanc par Mich. Corneille');

Samuel Erasmus Haslett (1836-1920);

By whom bequeathed to the Brooklyn Museum in 1927;

Sale, London, Christie's, 5 July 2011, lot 64, sold for the Benefit of the Brooklyn Museum, New York;

Where acquired.

H. Kim, A Study of Fifty Drawings attributed to Michel Corneille the Younger (1642-1708), unpublished MSc thesis, Pratt Institute, New York, 1998.

The 36 drawings in this lot form part of a larger group of representations of Old Testament subjects, made by the same as yet unidentified French artist active in the second half of the 17^th century. A number of attributions have been proposed over the years, but none have proved completely convincing, and therefore when the present drawings were sold in 2011 (together with one further scene, representing Moses with the Tables of the Law; see Provenance), they were catalogued, as here, as being by ‘The Master of the Ovals’, on account of the fact that many of the scenes are depicted within drawn ovals. 

Five further drawings from this group are in the Baltimore Museum of Art¹, three are in the Uffizi, two in the Louvre², one in Bruges and one in the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm³. A few others have appeared on the art market, and there is a rapid sketch for one of the drawings in the present group, The Plague of Frogs, in the Louvre (inv. 34058).

The attribution history of the group was discussed, with scholarly input from Madame Claudine Lebrun Jouve, in the 2011 sale catalogue entry. When they entered the collection of the Brooklyn Museum in 1927 as part of the Haslett Bequest, with an attribution to Poussin, these 36 drawings (plus Moses with the Tables of the Law) were together with eleven others, similar in size but sketchier in style. Previous to this, it would seem that these drawings had been together for a long time, as they were probably all sold in one lot in the Lélu sale in 1800 (see Provenance) where they were catalogued as 'Mich. Corneille', an attribution found on the verso of one of this group, Joseph's brothers return to their father Jacob. It seems that other drawings by the Master of the Ovals have also been given to the Corneilles in the past. For example, the 1810 catalogue of the Paignon-Dijonval collection listed seven drawings (nos. 2631-2) under that name (four of them oval, the others rectangular) measuring 26 x 33 cm. and representing subjects from the Old Testament.

But while they do show some similarities with the work of Michel Corneille II (1642-1708), the schematic and somewhat coarse handling rules out a firm attribution to this artist. More recently, Stéphane Loire has proposed an attribution to Louis de Boullogne the Elder (1609-1674), but his activity as a draughtsman is not well documented and his known paintings are not close in style to this group. The name of Pierre Monier (1641-1703), a pupil of Sébastien Bourdon, has also been suggested, and Bourdon’s influence on the Master of the Ovals is certainly evident.⁵ Indeed, one of the works in the present group, Abraham and the three angels, is directly inspired by a drawing of the same subject by Bourdon.⁶

Finally, we should also mention here the name of the little known miniaturist and engraver Sylvain Bonnet (circa 1645-1705), whose study for the frontispiece to Perrault's Hommes illustres, first published in 1696, is strikingly similar to drawings by the Master of the Ovals.⁷ A rapid sketch for the same composition is in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. Mas.1027).

Many of the drawings by the Master of the Ovals were reproduced in bodycolour on vellum by Jean Joubert (active 1676-1706). Most of these copies are in the Louvre, including thirteen that are exact copies of drawings from the present group, and another, after the present drawing of Rebecca and the servant of Abraham, was sold in 2011.⁸ Joubert specialized in the depiction of animals, working in the Atelier des Vélins du Roi alongside the more famous Nicolas Robert (1614-1685). 

¹ S. Loire, 'Louis de Boullogne, peintre, graveur et dessinateur', in Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1997 (1998), p. 121, figs. 31-4.

² S. Loire, op. cit., figs. 35-6.

³ S. Loire, op. cit., p. 120, fig. 30.

⁴ e.g. London, Sotheby's, 16 April 1997, lot 137; London, Christie's, 4 July 2000, lot 154; London, Sotheby's, 5 July 2000, lot 351; London, Christie's, 1 July 2001, lot 97.

⁵ For more on Monier’s drawings, see P. Rosenberg, 'A drawing by Pierre Monier', in The Burlington Magazine, CXXVII, 1985, pp. 786-9.

⁶ Frankfurt, Städelsches Kunstinstitut, inv. 1225; Sébastien Bourdon, exh. cat., Montpellier and Strasbourg, 2000-1, no. 193.1.

⁷ Berlin, Kupferstichkabinet, inv. KdZ 26271; Vom spaten Mittellater bis zu Jacques-Louis David. Neuerworbene und neubestimmte Zeichnungen im Berliner Kupferstichkabinett, 1973, no. 162.

⁸ London, Christie’s, 5 July 2011, lot 65.