Lot 576: NICOLAS MIGNARD, CALLED MIGNARD D'AVIGNON

NICOLAS MIGNARD, CALLED MIGNARD D'AVIGNON TROYES 1606 - PARIS 1668 CHRIST AMONG THE DOCTORS Black lead and red chalk, closely squared in pen and brown ink; signed in brown ink, lower left: Mignard 481 by 303 mm; 18 7/8 by 12 in

This grand modello was made in preparation for one of Mignard's largest paintings, executed in 1649 for the church of the Carthusian monastery of Villeneuve-les-Avignons (fig. 1). The painting was originally placed in the choir of the church, but since 1872 has been preserved in the city's museum.υ1 Christ among the Doctors is one of many paintings by the artist to be found in Provence: Mignard was First Painter to King Louis XIV, but spent most of his career in the region, where he became the leading religious painter of his time.

The drawing is highly characteristic of the artist's style and technique, and compares with two other squared compositional studies in the same medium, in the Louvre and the collection of the Bishop's Palace, Nîmes, made in preparation for Mignard's paintings The Visitation and The Assumption of the Virgin.υ2 Three further studies for Christ among the Doctors are known (in the Louvre and a private collection, Marseilles), in which Mignard studies the positions of the figures of Mary, one of the Doctors, and the feet of two figures in the foreground.υ3

1. A. Schnapper, Mignard d'Avignon (1606-1668), Avignon 1979, no. 37
2. The paintings are respectively in the Papal Palace, Avignon and the Musée du Vieux-Nîmes, Nîmes. See Schnapper, op.cit., pp. 59, 69 and 128, nos. D. 22-3
3. Schnapper, op. cit., pp. 73, 128, nos. D. 25-7