Molière

the learned ladies (Les femmes savantes)

A famous actor’s copy : the one of Jean Mauduit called Larive

NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR March, 9-12th 2017 Park Avenue Armory Booth C9 Molière

the learned ladies (Les femmes savantes)

A famous actor’s copy : the one of Jean Mauduit called Larive cahier n° 10

NEW YORK ANTIQUARIAN BOOK FAIR March, 9-12th 2017 Park Avenue Armory Booth C9

21, rue Fresnel. 75116 Paris M. + 33 (0)6 80 15 34 45 - T. +33 (0)1 47 23 41 18 - F. + 33 (0)1 47 23 58 65 Molière by Charles Antoine Coypel, [email protected] 1730, Library of la Comédie Française. [email protected] Conditions de vente conformes aux usages du Syndicat de la Librairie Ancienne et Moderne et aux règlements de la Ligue Internationale de la Librairie Ancienne N° de TVA.: FR21 478 71 326 Les Femmes savantes was created at the Palais Royal on 11 March 1672 and Hence the troupe of the Palais-Royal became independent. Molière now owned published in December of the same year. Two months later in February 1673, a theater that no longer needed royal commissions to ensure its maintenance Molière died after the 4th performance of the Malade imaginaire. Les Femmes and that of his troupe, the biggest part of the profits coming directly from savantes is therefore the last play published during his lifetime. His work ends Parisian audiences. On 17 September 1672, between two performances in where it started, with a play centered on women. Fifteen years separate Les town, Molière had to perform Les Femmes savantes in front of the King. He Précieuses ridicules and Les Femmes savantes. would thus give in Versailles “a most agreeable comedy entitled Les Femmes savantes, and which was admired by everyone” reported La Gazette de France. For Donneau de Visé, a chronicler at the Mercure galant, and contemporary of It was undoubtedly the last time that Molière would perform at Court, for the Molière, Les Femmes savantes is the direct heir of the Précieuses from 1659. The King, in front of the King. comedy revolves around the same ridiculous ambitions of women in relation to knowledge and love. It is no longer a matter of laughing at women but of In the 18th century, his work continued to know an immense success and was defending their cause while making the audience laugh: constantly performed. It is interesting to see how one era was able to read it, that is to say, use it: “Molière goes much further in Les Femmes savantes than in his Précieuses ridicules. For the first time he addresses the fundamental question of physical love other than It is equally interesting to see how an era could play him. This is what this little through traditional jokes … To this enlightened combat Molière has mixed in another set of books tries to illustrate: subject of debate: feminine knowledge. The three women who want to be only spirit show it by refusing their bodies to love” (R. Duchêne). 1. The first book is the first edition of Femmes savantes (1672). Of Molière’s plays, we know the extreme scarcity of contemporary bound copies. This one The last complete theatrical season of Molière in 1671-1672, was not without possesses an other charm, it is an actor’s copy which had belonged to one worry, mainly because of the privilege of the opera that the King granted upon of the greatest members of the Comédie Française at the dawn of the French Lully. An ordinance furthermore prohibited actors from using more than two Revolution, Jean Mauduit known as Larive. singers and six violins. Opera singers were thus put above actors. Although Molière was afraid of not being able to fill the theaters with spoken plays, he 2. The second book that of Antoine-Vincent Arnault, is a charming collection nevertheless decided to go back to putting on comedies without the ornaments, making up the history of great French actors of the 18th century, through rather than playing comedy-ballets without music. Les Femmes savantes was thus text and engravings. Jean Mauduit known as Larive features there in good staged when Lulli got his privilege. position.

The play was a success. Molière performed it twenty six times the year before 3. The third book presented is not a book but a suite of engravings whose his death (in comparison, Les Précieuses ridicules was performed seventy times in drawings were sketched from life in 1726 by Charles Antoine Coypel, when he thirteen years of performances). The profits accrued for the 1671-1672 season was watching performances of Molière’s plays in the hall of the same Théâtre amounted to 52,912 livres despite the considerable amounts (5,353 livres) that Français. Coypel is known to have been one of the best artists of the Regency. had to be taken from the earnings to pay the double layout of the hall. Each It’s a unique testimony of how Molière was played. actor’s share was 4,233 livres.

4 5 [1] MOLIÈRE Les Femmes savantes Paris, Pierre Promé, 1673 [December 10, 1672]

MOLIÈRE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT. EXCEPTIONAL ACTOR’S COPY, THAT OF JEAN MAUDUIT, KNOWN AS LARIVE, ONE OF THE GREATEST ACTORS OF THE 18th CENTURY, STUDENT OF LEKAIN AND FRIEND OF VOLTAIRE.

COPY CITED BY TCHEMERZINE.

“THERE WAS TALK ONLY OF LARIVE; EVERY YOUNG ACTOR TRIED TO IMITATE LARIVE. HE WAS THE FAVORITE ACTOR OF WOMEN AND YOUNG PEOPLE” (Grimod de La Reynière).

MOLIÈRE’S COPIES WITH A PRE-REVOLUTIONARY THEATRICAL PROVENANCE DON’T EXIST.

LES FEMMES SAVANTES WAS PERFORMED EIGHTY-FIVE TIMES AT THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE, WHEN LARIVE WAS A MEMBER

FIRST EDITION. Second state “in all points similar to that of 1672” (Guibert). “Baron de Ruble owned a unique copy dated 1672” (Tchemerzine). 12mo (150 x 88mm) Fleurons, headpiece and engraved initials COLLATION: π2 A8 B4 C8 D4 E8 F4 G8 H2 : 48 leaves

18TH CENTURY BINDING. Marbled calf, gilt supra-libris stamped on the upper side, gilt dos à nerfs, red edges. Box PROVENANCE: Jean Mauduit known as “Larive”, “La Rive” or “de La Rive” (supra-libris and ex-libris)

Small marginal tear on the last leaf. Cap and corners lightly rubbed

6 7 Jean Mauduit, known as Larive (1747-1827) was one of the most brilliant French actors of the Enlightenment. He began his career as a double to the famous tragedian Henri Louis Le Kain (1729-1778). At the time of his death, he had held leading roles at the Comédie Française for over ten years, with an ever- increasing success. When Jean Mauduit was a teenager with an untamable temperament, his grocer father from , sent him to Santo-Domingo. He escaped from the island, reached Paris and went knocking audaciously on Le Kain’s door. Alexandre Grimod de La Reynière, a gourmet and contemporary critic of Larive, relates these words exchanged between the apprentice-actor and the great tragedian:

“I dared, on my return from Santo Domingo go find the famous Le Kain. Filled with everything that his talent had inspired me, I told him that I was American (not wanting to be recognized, in the case where he would not favorably judge my abilities), I dared to add that a noble emulation carried me; that I had conceived being his double at the Comédie Française; that I expected from him a sincere avowal of my physical and moral abilities: what I thought I could assure him of, was that if he found in me no marked fault, I would succeed in being his double or would die trying. Le Kain smiled maliciously, and the intention of his smile was engraved in my memory; it is perhaps this memory that has most strengthened my emulation”.

Le Kain advised him to get some practice in the provinces. Jean Mauduit took the pseudonym of Larive (in memory of the locality of his paternal home “La petite rive”). In , Mademoiselle Clairon – twenty years his elder – who was performing there, undertook to make him a great tragedian. On December 3, 1770, the Sieur of Larive began at the Comédie Française with the role of Zamore in Voltaire’s Alzire. This beginning was not a happy one. The performance that had started with applause ended in whistles. Larive left for and remained there for four years despite Mademoiselle Clairon’s entreaties.

He did not return to Paris until 1775 where he attempted a second debut, performing in Iphigénie en Tauride. The reception he got from the public was so favorable to him that the members of the Comédie looked upon him for Le Kain’s double. Never did the surprise equal that of the Master when he found in Larive the supposed American to whom he had formerly granted an audition:

8 9 “enchanted with my happy start, added Larive, I invited him one day to dinner; masses became admirable beauties. Larive saw big, seized the whole role well, at the end of the meal, I made conv ersation on the temerity of beginners and was always noble and energetic; his developments were easy and of good effect; on their confidence; I asked him if he remembered a young American who his gestures always varied, natural and expressive. Never perhaps had one seen had consulted him and who had confessed to him his pretention of becoming such a handsome man on stage; a perfectly drawn head, beautiful teeth, bulging his double; after having thought for a moment, Le Kain said to me: Ah! I eyes, a big voice, full, round and sonorous, whose modulations were infinite, remember, I had never seen anything crazier than that young man; he had in and which, admirable in the medium, became terrible in the outbursts; all the his head all the hotness of his country; he had to, he said, either die or be my physical advantages, in one word, were the prerogative of this actor. Enriched double; and, since he isn’t, I don’t doubt that he is dead. Forgive me, I replied with his natural gift, and endowed with this happy irritability of nerves that clinking glasses with him, he kept his word to you; as that crazy American is produce all kinds of enthusiasm, he was the actor par excellence in essentially myself” (words recounted by Grimod de La Reynière). heroic roles, in those of a chivalrous genre especially. Another peculiar reality characterized him; no one acted with such naturalness and energy, insulting The archives of the Comédie Française preserve the manuscript inventory of contempt, bitter irony and all that can be called tragic bravado; the harshness Larive’s roles as a double, entitled Rôles auxquels M. Delarive doit se tenir prêt, qui of the tone that he placed there, and the intimate feeling that he seemed to sont de l’emploi de M. Le Kain et qu’il a tous joués (Roles to which Mr Delarive have of his strength and authority, almost invariably crushed his interlocutors. must be ready, which are the employment of Mr. Le Kain and all of which he Whatever several journalists, who had undoubtedly not seen him at the time has played). The repertoire contains close to ninety roles to know simultaneously of his great success, may have said, this actor will leave a fine name in the by heart! The tragedy category makes up most of it, especially Corneille’s plays history of theater. We will always cite four great tragedians: Baron for noblesse, (Pierre and Thomas), Racine and Voltaire. The principal comic plays are by naturalness and decency; Le Kain for depth, energy and the sublimity of the Molière: Le Tartuffe, Les Fourberies de Scapin, Le Médecin malgré lui, Les Précieuses pathos; Larive for brilliance, enthusiasm, heroism and training; and Talma, in ridicules. A second manuscript inventory, that of Le Kain, indicates the roles a less extended circle, for the energy of concentrated feelings, the terrible game that he held “in the lead”, and those that he had Larive hold “as a double”. The of physiognomy and the perfection of pantomime” (Grimod de la Reynière). older Le Kain got and saw his health decline, the more he was forced to give up leading roles. A letter dated November 15, 1776, establishes a passing of the Larive left the Comédie Française in 1789. In 1793, he was incarcerated and just torch between the two actors: “I feel my friend, that it is soon time to retire and escaped the guillotine, having been accused of giving shelter to Lafayette. On to leave you the kingdom to govern; may you put a little more order into your his release he left on a tour in the provinces, which was to be a new triumph. It little states than it was ever possible for me to do”. These inventories are very was said that Le Kain, when crossing the Styx, had left his genius on “Larive”. In incomplete and not dated but Le Kain had himself systematically “doubled” for 1800, he attempted a return in Paris but the glory of Talma was at its peak, and Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme and Le Malade imaginaire. Finally, the important Larive’s art now belonged to another era. He thenceforth enjoyed a retirement full Inventaire des Registres, also preserved at the archives of the Comédie Française, of honors and devoted himself to the construction of his property at Montlignon. show that Les Femmes savantes was performed eighty-five times at the Comédie From Stendhal to Louis Jouvet. Française, between 1771 and 1789, that is, several times a year while Larive was a member there. The cast is not mentioned, but, according to the site of the In 1804, the newspapers spoke again of Larive and gave luster to this glory of Comédie Française, Larive held the role of the young lover Clitandre. the Ancien Régime. The former member of the Comédie Française had published Réflexions sur l’art théâtral (1801) as well as Cours de déclamation divided into After Le Kain died in 1778, Larive was given possession of the roles of the great twelve sessions (1804). The Journal des Débats and the Courrier des spectacles artist and occupied the first rank of the tragic stage until the Revolution. On announced that at the Hotel Choiseul on n° 3 rue Neuve-Grange-Batelière, April 24, 1778, he played the part of Alceste in Le Misanthrope. Larive enjoyed the tragedian had started giving classes in declamation. On August 21, 1804, the glory of being the principal actor of the Comédie Française for ten years: Larive gave the first of twelve lessons promised to Stendhal and Pierre Daru. Calculating what it cost them (one louis of 24 francs for a half hour), they must “his reputation became immense. There was talk only of Larive; every young surely have hoped it to be of great value. But as Larive couldn’t bear the jokes of actor endeavored to imitate Larive: even his greatest flaws, in the eyes of the the two cousins, the lessons ceased after three months.

10 11 One hundred fifty years after Stendhal, Louis Jouvet referred to Larive in his classes at the Conservatory, notably for the work of the actors’ entering the stage: if the actor knew how to “attack” a stage, he would know how to play it, all his work naturally arising from this first moment. To succeed at this entrance, Jouvet put into place a breathing technique inspired by Larive’s Cours de déclamation: the actor must use his voice as a medium by working in a semi-tone according to the inflections of the role, then leave room for the natural, once possession of the role is taken on stage: “I’m thinking of Larive’s treatise and his comments on Phèdre: “at this moment, tears should come naturally to the actor”.

The characteristics of this copy indicate that Larive took ownership of it either at the time of his glory or at his golden retirement, rather than during his first missteps. It is a first edition that was already quite rare one hundred years after its publication. The binding in 18th century marbled calf and the engraved and pasted down ex-libris indicate the likely existence of a library of selected works that we know nothing of today. Larive would probably not have created an ex- libris for just a few volumes, and a young penniless actor at the start of his career would probably not have owned such a first edition. This unique provenance is all the more extraordinary, as it is one of Molière’s great comedies, the last to be published before his death. It is witness not only to Larive himself, but also to the bond between the tutelary figure of the Comédie Française and one of its most eminent interpreters under the Ancien Régime. The custodian-archivists of the Comédie Française confirm the uniqueness of such a copy of a pre-revolutionary actor.

REFERENCES : Guibert, I, p. 347 (”sur le plan purement littéraire cette pièce est une des plus parfaite”) -- Tchemerzine IV, p. 799 -- Le Petit, p. 309 -- site de la Comédie Française : http:// www.comedie-francaise.fr/histoire-et-patrimoine.php?id=386 -- Registres de pièces représentées à la Comédie française, de la saison 1770-1771 à la saison 1788-1789, bibliothèque de la Comédie Française -- Alexandre Grimod de La Reynière, Revue des Comédiens, ou critique raisonnée de tous les acteurs, danseurs et mîmes de la capitale, Paris, 1808 -- Martine de Rougemont, La Vie théâtrale en France au XVIIIe s., Paris, 1988 -- Maurice Lever, Théâtre et Lumières : les spectacles de Paris au XVIIIe s., Paris, 2001 -- Jean-Jacques Olivier, Henri-Louis Le Kain, de la Comédie-Française, Paris, 1907 -- Mémoires de Henri Louis Lekain, Colnet, Debray et Mongie, Paris, 1801 -- Paul Arbeiet, Le Tragédien Larive et son élève Stendhal, 28 juillet 1928

49.000 € / $53,000

12 13 14 15 cf. [2] [2] ARNAULT, Antoine-Vincent Les Souvenirs et les regrets du vieil amateur dramatique, ou lettres d’un oncle à son neveu sur l’ancien théâtre français Paris, Charles Froment, 1829

PORTRAITS OF GREAT ACTORS OF THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE IN THE ENLIGHTENMENT, INCLUDING JEAN MAUDUIT-LARIVE.

FINE COPY IN CONTEMPORARY BINDING

16 17 FIRST EDITION

8vo (172 x 106mm) ILLUSTRATION: 36 engraved plates enhanced with original colors. Some are shorter than the others CONTEMPORARY BINDING. Straight grain green morocco, gilt and stamped decor on sides, flat spine gilt, gilt edges

Les Souvenirs et les regrets du vieil amateur dramatique assembles the portraits of the most brilliant members of the Comédie française of the second half of the 18th century. The frontispiece depicts Voltaire playing opposite Le Kain in the creation of Fanatisme ou Mahomet le prophète. Voltaire wrote the leading role of his play for his actor friend, and even presented him with the manuscript. Both of them are placed at the head of this book and appear as tutelary figures of the dramatic arts.

In their wake are Mademoiselle Clairon (depicted twice at two different ages), Larive at his beginnings taking a tragic pose and the actors Molé, Bellecour, Préville, Brizard, Fleury etc.

Completing the portraits are short biographical and critical texts. The academician and “drama amateur” Antoine-Vincent Arnault, as mentioned in the title, saw all these actors on stage.

The six pages devoted to Larive (pp. 87 and foll.) sway between the annoyance that his complacency as a young leading man could engender and the admiration for certain roles that he would endorse at maturity. The only comedy cited by Arnault is precisely by Molière:

“the one where Larive shone the most in my opinion, is the role of the fencing master, in Le Bourgeois gentilhomme. As all his physical advantages were developing, he only needed to show himself there to be applauded, he liked to perform this role in which Kain, without a doubt, would have been less well placed. Le Kain did not have his leg as well built as Mr. Larive”

1.800 € / $2,000

18 19 cf. [3] [3] COYPEL, Charles Antoine. to the stage. He doesn’t illustrate Molière’s text; he sketches its movements from life. A deeper study would make it almost possible to identify the spectators and Suitte d’Estampes des principaux sujets des Comédies de the actors themselves. This suite by Coypel offers a splendid testimony of what Molière Gravées sur les Esquisses de Charles Coypel the Comédie Française was at the dawn of the Enlightenment, one evening when Paris, chez Surrugue, 1726 a comedy of Molière’s was being performed.

This suite was featured in July 1726 in the Mercure de France. One could almost MOLIÈRE SKETCHES FROM LIFE BY CHARLES ANTOINE COYPEL, believe that the writers of the article were giving an account of a performance ONE OF THE BEST ARTISTS OF THE REGENCY. they had attended:

REMARKABLE VISUAL TESTIMONY OF MOLIÈRE’S PLAYS “The idea [of this frontispiece] appeared very ingenious. It depicts the room of the Comédie, the curtain and the chandeliers lowered. We see a part of the box seats and PERFORMED AT THE COMÉDIE FRANÇAISE, AT THE BEGINNING the parterre that the author has filled with varied and comical characters: dandies of TH OF THE 18 CENTURY the theater, dandizettes of the bel air in the box seats; in the parterre, old pillars of the theater, recently arrived young people, difficult great men, etc.” FIRST EDITION According to the editors of the Mercure, Coypel rendered the spectators’ Folio (325 x 262mm) animation during the few minutes preceding a performance in the former room ILLUSTRATION: 6 engravings etched by chisel by François Joullain, after drawings by Charles of the Comédie Française on rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain. Behind the half Coypel opened curtain is an actor or a pledgee of the theater, on each side of the stage, CONTENTS OF THE ILLUSTRATIONS (rating no of the catalogue raisonné by Th. audiences sitting behind a balustrade, on the bench seats bordering the stage (an Lefrançois): title-frontispiece (D. 29); Psyché (P. 75); Georges Dandin (D. 30); Monsieur de English custom introduced to France after 1650). These bench seats had been Pourceaugnac (D. 31); Les Femmes savantes (D. 32); L’École des femmes (D. 33) installed at the time of the theater’s construction in 1689, then extended in 1698, to better counter the confusion between the audience “on the theater” and the 20TH CENTURY BINDING. Bradel with vellum spine, plates mounted on guards actors. The audience in the parterre is upright, separated from the stage by a grill, PROVENANCE: Lucien Tissot-Dupont (ex-libris) the chandeliers still lowered to bring a maximum of light to the room before the beginning of the performance and are raised at the same time as the curtain. You Molière’s comedies gave rise to various renderings by great artists. One of the would believe yourself at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in the opening scene of Cyrano most famous versions is by François Boucher (1734). However, its static aspect de Bergerac or in some scene from Proust where everything happens in the room makes one forget the theater itself. Boucher illustrates texts and not their and not on the stage. The three knocks will resound: performance so it falls within a common enough project of an illustrated book. The much scarcer suite of engravings by Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752) “This engraving, preceding the suite of prints – like the vision that it evokes, in reality is exactly the opposite of Boucher’s engravings. This is the difference between preceded each performance of the Comédie Française, thus making it a document of the theater that we read and the theater that we see. The engravings restore the exceptional interest. Not only does it give us an idea of the former room of the famous Molière of the Regency in all the inventive vigor of his performances. Coypel Company (the current Comédie Française was built by Victor Louis from 1786 to stands among the spectators of the Comédie Française in 1726. While Boucher 1790), but also and above all, in a singularly lively shortcut, it allows us to grasp the invented almost timeless, abstract scenes, Coypel was close to his subject, glued relationship between the theater and society in 1726” (Th. Lefrançois)

22 23

The drawings before the engraving. the opinion formulated by Antoine Schnapper for whom the suite was engraved Charles Coypel wrote his project on the curtain of the frontispiece: “you cherish from “painted sketches”, drawings served as models to the engraver for five of no less the works of Molière than those of Michel Cervantes. Therefore I still the etchings. The dedication epistle by Coypel on the frontispiece speaks only hope that you will forgive the drawings and favor the subjects”. of ”sketches” and the frontispiece of “drawings”. Each of the first four theatrical illustrations bears the mention “engraved by Joullain on the drawing of Ch. In other words, Coypel compared these drawings of theatrical scenes to the great Coypel”. We have found no mention of paintings having served as possible project of his life, the famous tapestries of Don Quixote for which he had painted models. An examination of Joullain’s engravings is in its self very revealing. twenty eight paintings over more than thirty years, between 1716 and 1751. His first five plates show etching work barely continued by chisel, which reveals These tapestries were being woven when Coypel undertook to draw these scenes through its lightness and spiritual lines, drawn models. of Molière’s comedies. The public already knew a suite of engravings of Don Quixote. But with this new suite, Coypel obviously did not have the ambition of Les Femmes savantes, a drawing by Vivant Denon. rivaling with the sumptuous tapestries commissioned by the grandson of Louis XIV, the Duc d’Orléans. At the time, Charles Antoine Coypel was the first Only one preparatory drawing is still known, that of the Femmes savantes. It was painter of the Duc d’Orléans before becoming that of the King twenty years later. part of the Vivant Denon collection (cf. Denon and Duval, 1829, p. 293) before The engravings were not a princely commission. Were they even commissioned? becoming part of the Marquis Charles de Valori’s collection (Paris, 25 November They simply establish a pause in his work, almost a relaxation. For the painter, 1907, n° 38, reproduced). It reappeared in a sale (Paris, 9 June 1953, n° 4) before their charm lies in the modest pleasure of depicting a theater that he knows and being lost sight of again. The perfect conformity of the drawing from the former of sharing it with his audience. We perceive this “pleasure” of the artist even in Vivant Denon collection with Joullain’s engraving (in relation to which it is the laughing aspect of the images. naturally reversed) leaves no doubt to the fact that this one served as a model to the engraver. This suite is in itself a completed project, conceived as such from the drawing to the engraving. These engravings don’t arise from another set (contrary to those Coypel chose to draw the famous Scene 2 of Act III of the Femmes savantes. The of Don Quixote done after the paintings and tapestries) and do not form a series composition is rigorous, frontal and symmetrical. Trissotin, pompously sitting destined for the illustration of a book. in a large armchair is seriously reading poems with ridiculous titles to the three women framing him: Sonnet à la Princesse Uranie, sur sa fièvre or the epigram Sur In July 1726 the Mercure de France published the following announcement: un carrosse de couleur amarante donné à une dame de ses amies.

“M. Coypel, first painter of Monseigneur the Duc d’Orléans and author of the paintings Coypel was perfectly able to bring out the comedy of this play as the members of of Don Quixote, has just given the public four engraved etchings after his drawings and the Comédie Française performed it in 1726. The austere prudery of the women whose subjects are the titles of the comedies of Molière. He depicts the main scene in wishing to be scholarly is manifested in their dress, pushed to the point of ugliness. each play or, rather, one of those that seem most suitable to expression… The subjects Their collars are closed high, their hair neglected. Their hands suspended in treated were Georges Dandin, asking his wife for forgiveness in the presence of Mr. the air cannot support the real pleasure that reading brings them. By contrast, and Mrs. de Sottenville, Pourceaugnac between the two doctors, Trissottin reading a fourth woman, young, breathing freely, stands daydreaming away from the his sonnet to the femmes savantes. These three prints were preceded by a fourth which stage, while the statue of Sappho with her insolently swelled up chest over the would serve as the frontispiece for every book”. three learned women whose foreheads are coquettishly decorated with warts. Sensuality cannot completely be restrained in this rigorously ordered parlor. The suite was completed soon after with a scene from the École des femmes, The philosophical and literary concerns of the audience are also judiciously then by a scene from Psyché (bound in first position in our copy). Contrary to perceptible in the busts of Aristotle and Sappho, placed on either side of the door.

26 27 28 29 The case of Psyché.

Only one engraving, the scene from Psyché (bound in the front of our copy), with the darkest blacks, corresponds to the traditional work of a chisel rendering a painting. The engraving would have been made from a painting by Coypel and not from a drawing. This painting called Psyché abandonné par l’amour is preserved at the Palais des Beaux Arts in . It can be surprising to see this composition included in the Suite d’estampes des principaux sujets de comédies de Molière for not only is this play not a comedy (it is a tragedy-ballet) but it is the result of the collaboration between Molière, Corneille, Quinault and Lully. The last two acts were entirely written by Corneille, on a plan by Molière. Coypel was a great admirer and connoisseur of Molière and these considerations were certainly not foreign to him. Why would he have chosen a minor play in Molière’s repertory that was shared with others and which did not respond to the project of the title, to assemble “comedies”? This composition is not mentioned in the announcement of the Mercure de France of July 1726. According to Thierry Lefrançois, “we have every reason to believe that the painting of Psyché had had some success, Charles Coypel or Louis Surugue, the publisher of the suite, thought afterwards that they would usefully complete the suite of Molière’s comedies, even if by its subject and style, the comparison did not seem to be necessary”.

This suite of six engravings appeared in the sales catalogue after Charles Coypel’s death in 1753 (n° 479), written up by Pierre-Jean Mariette. Its scarcity had kept it unknown for too long. These engravings are nevertheless remarkable for more than one reason. Charles Antoine Coypel did not illustrate one text, nor make one book. No verse of Molière’s accompanies this suite. In six engraved images, by a “singularly lively shortcut”, Coypel shows with one stroke Molière’s theater being acted at the Comédie Française at the beginning of the 18th century. How do you play Molière barely a half-century after his death? What other direct visual testimony do we have of the depiction of some of the most important plays of the French repertory, performed on one of the most important stages of the 18th century? Vivant Denon didn’t do too wrongly, preserving the only known drawing of this extraordinary suite.

REFERENCES: Thierry Lefrançois, Charles Coypel. Peintre du roi, Paris, 1994, pp. 425 and foll. -- Cohen-de Ricci, Guide de l’amateur de livres à gravures du XVIIIe siècle, 711: “these figures, where the exact tradition of types, costumes and staging have been preserved are rare” -- P. Lacroix, Iconographie molièresque, Nice, 1872, p. 31 -- Voltaire, Vie de Molière avec de petits sommaires de ses pièces, Paris, 1739 Charles Antoine Coypel, self-portrait, 1734. Getty Museum. 12.000 € / $12,700

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