Sébastien BOURDON (Montpellier 1616-Paris 1671)

Stop in front of the inn Canvas (old restorations). 65 x 54 cm Born into a Calvinist family in Montpellier in 1616, Sébastien BOURDON had an adventurous youth; he was apprenticed to a painter in Paris, before leaving for Rome at the age of 20. He painted bambochades and frequented the young Nicolas POUSSIN, Peter van LAER, Giovanni Benedetto CASTIGLIONE, Claude LORRAIN, Pietro da CORTONA. Denounced as a heretic, he was forced to return to Paris and stopped in Venice. The arrival of Poussin in Paris (1640-1642) allowed him to adopt the classical style of this master, although his large altarpieces show a slight Baroque influence. In 1648, he was among the twelve elders who founded the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture. He went to Sweden from 1652 to 1654, then stayed in his native city in 1657. On his return to the capital, he obtained prestigious commissions for large-scale decorations, in particular for the Hôtel de Bretonvillers in 1663. Our painting can be compared to his scenes of guardhouses around 1640, at the time of his installation in Paris (Jacques THUILLIER, Sébastien Bourdon, 1616-1671, Catalogue critique et chronologique de l'oeuvre complet, Réunion des musées nationaux, Montpellier, 2000, p.182 to p.191). Note the detail of the animals drinking at the trough on the right, which is related to his pastoral scenes, and the alms given on the left to the little boy carrying a violin, close to the world of Le NAIN.