Lot 50: Nicolas de Plattemontagne (Paris 1631-1706)

Nicolas de Plattemontagne (Paris 1631-1706)
Portrait of Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne, bust-length, slightly turned to the left
with inscription 'Jean Baptiste de Champagne/1648'
black, red and blue chalk, traces of white chalk, on light brown paper
10 5/8 x 7¼ in. (270 x 182 mm.)

Évreux, Musée d'Évreux, À l'école de Philippe de Champaigne, 2007, no.34.

Bénard, Le cabinet de M. Paignon Dijonval, Paris, 1810, no. 1512.

Gilbert Paignon-Dijonval, by descent to Charles-Gilbert Morel de Vindé.
Anonymous sale, Rouen, 24 April 2005, lot 138, where acquired by the present owner.

Nicolas was the son of Matheus Plattenberg (circa 1608-60), a Flemish painter specializing in seascapes who used the French version of his name when he moved to Paris. Nicolas entered the studio of Philippe de Champaigne where he met the nephew of his master, Jean-Baptiste de Champaigne (1631-1681) with whom he would develop a long-lasting friendship and professional collaboration.
This drawing is the first known portrait by Plattemontagne of his friend done when they were both seventeen! Two later portraits are known, one executed in 1654 now at the Louvre (exhib. cat., Evreux, op. cit., no. 35), the other now in the British Museum, dated 1677, showing Jean-Baptiste with his wife (inv. 1857.0228.218). Their great friendship was also celebrated in a magnificent double portrait executed in 1654 where each artist painted the likeness of the other (Rotterdam, Boymans-Van Beuningen Museum, op. cit., p. 56, fig. 18).
The present work was one of many drawings by Plattemontagne once in the great collection of Gilbert Paignon-Dijonval (1708-1792) who seems to have been able to acquire a part of the artist's studio sold by one of his sons in 1757. Among the drawings by Plattemontagne in the Paignon-Dijonval collection were eleven portraits of personalities in his circle, including a few members of the Champaigne family.