Lot 74: Pierre Dupuis (Montfort-l'Amaury 1610-1682 Paris) Peaches, grapes, plums and pomegranates

Peaches, grapes, plums and pomegranates on a stone plinth and a carved stone tablet with apples and peaches in a landscape
oil on canvas
89.8 x 117.2cm (35 3/8 x 46 1/8in).

While works by Pierre Dupuis are scarce, his importance as a precursor of this particular type of still life painting, which was later expounded by such artists as Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer, Nicolas de Largillière and Alexander-François Desportes, is recognised. The same treatment of fruit, leaves and stonework can be found in a signed work by this master, which was previously in an American private collection, while a similarly complex and ambitious composition which George Faré attributes to Dupuis is in the G. Scharnowski Collection, Munich (see Michel Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Mort en France, Le VIIe Siècle, Paris, 1974, pp. ill. pp. 201, 198-9).

With its rich and subtle palette, its attention to detail and complex structure, the present canvas is typical of the way in which Dupuis married the Roman Caravaggesque tradition of still life painting with the more direct classical influences of artists working in Paris, such as Jean-Michel Picart, Louise Moillon and François Garnier. His significance was well recognised in his lifetime. In 1646 he was appointed Peintre Ordinaire des Ecuries du Roi by his patron Henri de Lorraine, Comte d'Harcourt, with the consent of Queen Anne of Austria. He executed still lifes for the Archduke Leopold William and four works described as representing fruit and flowers by 'Monsu da Poi' are listed in the Albano residence of Benedetto Pamphilj.