BON BOULLOGNE(Paris, 1649-1717)

PAN ET LES NYMPHES Paris, last quarter of the 17th century Oil on canvas (lined) 178 x 120 cm (with frame: 193 x 135 cm) Provenance Private collection, Paris, 2012 Exhibition Musée Magnin, Dijon, 5 December 2014-5 March 2015, Bon Boullogne Bibliography François Marandet (ed.), Bon Boullogne, 1646-1717: un chef d'école au Grand Siècle, Dijon-Paris, 2014, reproduced p. 25, fig. 14 Scientific imagery, radiography and infra-red photography by Chantal Ouairy / Archipel, on request. In an ideal landscape, crossed by the course of a river, Pan is playing the flute between two groups of nymphs while one of their companions, equipped with a bow and dressed in pink, stands slightly behind. Reeds occupy the centre of this narrative composition, inspired by Ovid's Metamorphoses (Book I, VIII). The nymph in the background is Syrinx, the companion of the hamadryads of Nonacris, who can be recognized by her ivory bow. Fiercely attached to her chastity, she defended herself fiercely against the assaults of the gods and satyrs until the day when Pan led her to the banks of the river Ladon. She then begged her sisters, the Naiads, to save her by a metamorphosis. They changed her into reeds. And when Pan, believing to seize her, embraced only reeds, he made a flute of them and gave her the name of Syrinx in order to keep this way of talking to her. The very legible composition of our painting is the result of a mature reflection, which shows some repentances revealed by the X-ray and under infrared. A character facing Syrinx has disappeared. However, he appears in another painting by Bon Boullogne for Trianon, now in the Arras Museum (fig. 1). A patron close to the Court would have commissioned a larger version of this painting, which is ours. Bon Boullogne, known as Boullogne the Elder, was the son of Louis Boullogne and the elder brother of Louis II. Like them, he was a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture and took part in the decoration of the great royal sites - the Invalides, the Louvre, Versailles, the Grand Trianon... His work was rediscovered by Antoine Schnapper in 1978, and was honoured in 2014 during a retrospective exhibition organised by the Musée National Magnin in Dijon. Our painting was then added to its catalogue. Additional information given by the collector is accessible by QR Code in the PDF.