Laurent de LA HYRE (Paris 1606 - 1656)
Allegory of the Public Faith
Black stone and grey wash
12 x 14,2 cm
Bears at the bottom the n° 9
Provenance:
- Private collection, Antwerp;
- Acquired by exchange in 1979.
Exhibitions:
- Laurent de La Hyre 1606 - 1646, l'homme et l'oeuvre, Grenoble, Rennes, Bordeaux, 1989, n° 302, reproduced;
- Dessins de la collection Christian et Isabelle Adrien, Rennes, Musée des Beaux - Arts, 2012, n° 37b, reproduced, (notice by Pierre Rosenberg).
Note:
The two drawings by Laurent de La Hyre presented in this sale belong to a whole group of works referring to Cesare Ripa's Iconologia, executed in the 1650s. The Museums of Besançon and Warsaw possess examples (see the catalogue of the exhibition Laurent de La Hyre 1606 - 1646, l'homme et l'oeuvre, n°s 296 and 300).
The Adrien collection possessed a third drawing in this series, Allégorie de l'Etude, (see the catalogue of the exhibition Drawings from the Christian and
Isabelle Adrien Collection, n° 37a)
Did La Hyre execute preparatory drawings for a décor on the theme of virtues? The hypothesis seems plausible. He had already made a similar set for Tallement des Réaux, on the theme of the Liberal Arts. The Allegory of Public Faith can thus be directly linked to a painting exhibited at the Walpole Gallery in London in 1996 (see op. cit. above).
