°◆*42 GEORGES DE LA TOUR (VIC-SUR-SEILLE 1593-1653 LUNÉVILLE)

Saint Andrew oil on canvas 24Ω x 19√ in. (62 x 50.5 cm.) £4,000,000-6,000,000 US$5,700,000-8,500,000 €4,700,000-7,000,000

PROVENANCE: catalogue, Paris, 1972, pp. 127-128 and 239, under nos. 4 and 34-42. (Probably) Commissioned for a church or monastery in or around Lunéville, or J. Thuillier, L'Opera Completa di Georges de La Tour, Milan, 1973, p. 88, under Vic, and later sent to Paris, where retrieved in 1694 by no. 19, as 'St Bartholomew (?)' after a lost original. François de Camps (1643-1723), Abbot of Signy, on behalf of the following, B. Nicolson and C. Wright, Georges de La Tour, London, 1974, pp. 22 and 166, Jean-Baptiste Nualart (d. 1694), Canon of Albi Cathedral, by whom gifted to under no. 12, as 'St Bartholomew (?)' and 'original lost', dating to circa 1621-23. the following, B. Nicolson, Caravaggism in Europe, Turin, 1989, I, p. 133, as 'St Bartholomew Chapel of Saint John, Albi Cathedral, until circa 1795, or shortly thereafter. (?)' and 'lost'. Private collection, near Albi, and by descent until 1991. M. Mojana, in Georges de La Tour, P. Rosenberg, ed., Paris, 1992, p. 20, no. 4, Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, Monaco, 21 June 1991, lot 108, when acquired by illustrated, as 'St Bartholomew'. the present owner. J. Thuillier, Georges de La Tour, Paris, 1992, pp. 46-48, 54 and 283-82, no. 6, illustrated in colour. EXHIBITED: J.-C. Boyer, 'Les "Apôtres" de Georges de La Tour de Paris à Albi', in Georges London, Walpole Gallery, France in the Golden Age, 26 June-31 July 1996, no. 1 de La Tour, ou, La nuit traversé: Colloque organisé à Vic-sur-Seille, du 9 au 11 (catalogue entry by M. Fagiolo dell'Arco). septembre 1993, Metz, 1994, p. 59, as 'St. Bartholomew'. Paris, Grand Palais, Georges de La Tour, 3 October 1997-26 January 1998, no. 5. J.-C. Le Floch, Le Signe de contradiction: Essai sur Georges de La Tour et son Houston, The Museum of Fine Arts, on long-term loan, 6 September œuvre, Rennes, 1995, p. 128, under no. 11, as 'Saint Barthelemy (peut-être 2000-October 2018. plutôt un Saint André)'. Tokyo, The National Museum of Western Art, Georges de La Tour, 8 March-29 J. Thuillier, Saint Jean-Baptiste dans le désert: Georges de la Tour, Metz, 1995, May 2005, no. 2. p. 15, illustrated. Madrid, , Georges de La Tour, 1593-1652, 23 February-12 June P. Choné, Georges de La Tour: Un peintre lorrain au XVIIe siècle, Tournai, 1996, 2016, no. 3. p. 130, illustrated. P. Conisbee, 'An Introduction to the Life and Art of Georges de La Tour', in LITERATURE: Georges de La Tour and His World, exhibition catalogue, Washington and Fort C. Le Goux de la Berchère, 'Procez verbal de la visite de l'église métropolitaine Worth, 1996, pp. 43 and 48, fig. 33. et du chapitre d'Alby', 8 March 1698, MS, Albi, Archevêché d'Albi, as 'treize L. Slatkes, 'Georges de La Tour and the Netherlandish Followers of tableaux représentant Nostre-Seigneur et les douze apôtres, dans les ', in Georges de La Tour and His World, exhibition catalogue, bordures dorées pour demeurer attachés fixés autour de ladite chapelle, où ils Washington and Fort Worth, 1996, p. 206. sont'. D. Brême, Georges de La Tour, Paris, 1997, pp. 40-45, illustrated. Mémoire des effets concernant les Arts qui se trouvent dans le district d'Alby, J.-P. Cuzin and D. Salmon, Georges de La Tour: Histoire d'une redécouverte, département du Tarn, et qui méritent la plus grande considération, etc., 1795, Paris, 1997, pp. 112-113, illustrated. MS, Paris, Archives Nationales, F 17A 1231, dossier 4, pièce 44, as 'Douze petits P. Rosenberg and B. Ferté, La Tour, Milan, 1998, p. 121, no. 13, illustrated, tableaux, grandeur de portraits, représentant les douze Apôtres, d'une touche erroneously as in the collection of Heinz Kisters, Kreuzlingen. forte et rembrunie comme celle de Michel-Ange de Caravage'. J.-P. Mohen et al., Les Apôtres de Georges de La Tour: réalités et virtualités, R. Huyghe, 'L'influence de La Tour. Une oeuvre perdue de Georges de la Tour', exhibition catalogue, Albi, 2004, pp. 4, 10-11 and 61-62, illustrated. L'Amour de L'Art, 1946, p. 255-258. V. Merlini, D. Salmon and D. Storti, eds., Georges de La Tour in Milan: The F.G. Pariset,Georges de la Tour, Paris, 1948, p. 399, note 89. Adoration of the Shepherds, Christ with in the Carpenter's Shop, P. Rosenberg and J. Thuillier, in Georges de La Tour, P. Landry, ed., exhibition exhibition catalogue, Milan, 2011, pp. 49 and 53, fig. 40a.

158 In addition to the hammer price, a Buyer’s Premium (plus VAT) is payable. Other taxes and/or an Artist Resale Royalty fee are also payable if the lot has a tax or λ symbol. Check Section D of the Conditions of Sale at the back of this catalogue. The present lot George de La Tour, Saint Andrew Fig. 1 Georges de La Tour, Saint James the Lesser, Musée Fig. 2 Georges de La Tour, Saint Jude Thaddeus, Musée Fig. 3 Georges de La Tour, Saint Philip, Chrysler Museum Fig. 4 Georges de La Tour, Saint Thomas, The National Fig. 5 Georges de La Tour, Saint James the Greater, Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi Toulouse-Lautrec, Albi of Art, Norfolk Virginia Museum of Western Art, Tokyo Private collection

One of the last pictures by the artist remaining in private hands, this sixteenth century. Rather they are of their time and place, men of flesh and Paris in 1694 by abbé François de Camps (1643-1723), with the remaining auction in 2008. As with the Chrysler picture, copies of all three works are haunting image of Saint Andrew is an outstanding work by Georges de blood who still seem extraordinarily immediate and credible’ (P. Conisbee, two arriving the following year. A renowned scholar and connoisseur, de preserved in the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec. The two remaining Apostles, La Tour - the most important exponent of Caravaggism in seventeenth- op. cit., 1996, p. 48). Camps assembled an important collection of paintings in Paris, which for which neither the originals nor the copies survive, are thought to be of century France, and one of the most enigmatic and elusive figures in was later absorbed by the dukes of Orléans. It remains unclear as to Saint John and Saint Matthew or Saint Bartholomew. the history of European painting. Painted in the early 1620s, the picture Despite its early date, there is already a sophistication in the treatment whether the Albi series formed part of de Camps’s own collection, or originally formed part of the famous series of Albi Apostles of which only of this canvas: the artist masterfully layers glazes for the play of half- whether he was acting solely as an intermediary on behalf of Nualart. In Dating and Influences: six of the original thirteen canvases are known to survive today. lights between highlights in the flesh tones and darkest shadows, while the catalogue to the 2016 Madrid exhibition, Jean-Claude Boyer notes painting the Apostle’s forehead and weathered hands with a remarkably that de Camps, then abbé of Signy, had been appointed a commendatory Although there has been considerable debate over the dating of the Albi The son of a baker, La Tour was born in Vic-sur-Seille in , the instinctive wet-in-wet technique. Such virtuosic handling, combined with abbot of Champagne in 1693, the year before their arrival in Albi (Georges series within La Tour’s oeuvre, there is a consensus among scholars that independent duchy on the frontier with Protestant Germany, and then at the simplified geometry of the composition, was central to La Tour’s de La Tour, Madrid, 2016, p. 88). The abbey of Champagne was then in they were painted at the beginning of his career. Jean-Pierre Cuzin and the forefront of the Catholic Reformation. Although scholars have been distinctive stylistic interpretation of . The restrained tonality, a the grip of financial crisis. This has prompted de Boyer to speculate that Jacques Thuillier both consider the series to be the first extant works divided over whether he travelled to Italy early in his career, it is clear that hallmark of the Albi Series, is interrupted only by the red of his mantle, the the pictures were then the property of the abbey and that de Camps, in by the artist with the former suggesting they date to either 1614-15 or he spent most of his life in Lorraine, where he formed an isolated and colour that would dominate La Tour’s work throughout his career. his new role as commendator, sold the pictures in order to relieve their to 1620-22, after he had moved to Lunéville. Benedict Nicolson and compelling artistic idiom. Highly successful during his lifetime, La Tour’s financial burden (ibid.). Christopher Wright dated them to the early 1620s (Georges de La Tour, reputation, like that of El Greco and Vermeer, slipped into oblivion during The Albi Apostles series: London, 1974, p. 24). At the time of the 1996 exhibition Georges de La the following centuries with his works being attributed to painters such as The series remained at Albi and was recorded in 1795 during the Tour and His World, Philip Conisbee dated the pictures to c.1624 (op. cit.). the young Velázquez, Zurbarán and Ribera, before his artistic resurrection This picture is one of a suite of thirteen canvases representing Christ Revolution when included on a list of works in the cathedral to be saved, More recently, in the 2016 Madrid exhibition catalogue, Jean-Claude Boyer in 1915 driven by the German art historian, Herman Voss. Since the first and the twelve Apostles that are known as the ‘Albi series’ by virtue of where they were described by ex-canon Jean-François Massol as worthy proposed a dating of ‘between 1614/5 and the early 1620s’ (Georges de La monographic exhibition of his work, held in Paris in 1972, La Tour has their earliest known location in the city’s Cathedral of Saint Cecilia. As of: ‘the greatest preservation’. Massol described the: ‘strong and darkened Tour 1593-1652, Madrid, 2016, p. 88). been the subject of numerous publications and exhibitions. Following it’s with so much associated to this artist, the genesis of the Albi Apostles touch’, and astutely related them to the work of Caravaggio, then the rediscovery in 1991, this canvas, one of fewer than fifty pictures accepted remains a mystery. There are no surviving documents connected to what subject of much renewed interest from painters such as Jacques-Louis While scholars of La Tour’s work have universally agreed on the influence as by La Tour, has played a central role in our understanding of his artistic surely must have constituted an important commission for the artist early David. This is the last document that refers to the pictures in Albi and no of Caravaggio, whose artistic language of tenebrism was coursing through development and the revival of his reputation. in his career. Scholars have suggested that the series was likely to have subsequent description of the cathedral mentions their presence there. European painting in the first decades of the seventeenth century, the been commissioned for a church or monastery in or around Lunéville or subject of whether La Tour made a trip to Italy, possibly between 1613 and Imbued with a disarming stillness, Saint Andrew, shown in front of the Vic-sur-Seille. However, it is equally possible that they were painted for It was not until the 1972 Paris exhibition that it was finally established 1616, has ignited long-standing and energetic debate (for a full discussion crux decussata on which he was crucified, stares in meditative silence at a private patron, as was the case for the comparable and contemporary that only two of La Tour’s original Albi Apostles – those of Saint James see ‘Celui qui croyait à Rome, celui qui n’y croyait pas’, in Georges de La the open book before him. Unlike the five other surviving pictures from sets of Christ and the Apostles painted by Rubens for the Duke of Lerma in the Lesser and Saint Jude (figs. 1 & 2) - had remained together, by then Tour 1593-1652, exhibition catalogue, 2016, pp. 63-69). Some, including the artist’s series of Apostles - many of which could be mistaken for Spain (1610-12; Madrid, Prado), and those by his pupil van Dyck, executed forming part of an incomplete series in the Musée Toulouse-Lautrec Voss, Rosenberg and Thuillier, believe that such a trip is irrefutable and dishevelled characters from the streets or fields of La Tour’s world - there in Antwerp from 1618-20. (Albi). Pierre Rosenberg and Jacques Thuillier showed that the remaining that it proved defining in terms of his artistic development, while others, is no questioning the religious nature of this work. Here, parallel to the eight Apostles and the canvas of Christ were faithful but later copies such as Cuzin, Nicolson and , rejected this theory and picture plane and standing directly before the viewer, the saint radiates The complete series is first recorded in 1698 in the sixth chapel of Saint of La Tour’s originals, most probably executed from the period of the point to the absence of documentary evidence. Nicolson and Wright an intensely spiritual solemnity. Allied with this uncompromisingly frontal John in the cathedral choir where they are described as: ‘treize tableaux Restoration and possibly commissioned to avoid risky or indeed expensive suggested the influence of , while Leonard Slatkes disposition, the strong employed in the folds of the saint’s representant Nostre-Seigneur et les douze apôtres, dans des bordures dorés restoration. This conclusion, illustrated through a direct comparison (op. cit.) argued that La Tour must have encountered the work of Dirck mantle, which in turn casts a deep shadow over his brown jerkin, endow pour demeurer attachées fixes autor de ladite chapelle oùils sont’ (‘thirteen between La Tour’s Saint Philip (fig. 3; Norfolk, Virginia, Chrysler Museum), van Baburen, with whom ter Brugghen shared a workshop in Utrecht and the figure with a sculptural grandeur and monumentality. paintings that represent our Lord and the twelve Apostles, in gilded then in a Swiss private collection, with the corresponding saint from Albi, where they transmitted their interpretations of Caravaggio’s style. Others frames to remain fixed and unmoveable around the said chapel where they was confirmed by the subsequent succession of remarkable rediscoveries. still believe that the artist remained in his native Lorraine, where his style Whilst La Tour’s Saint Andrew exudes a spiritual profundity, his subject are’). An inscription on the tomb of Canon Jean-Baptiste Nualart, who was Firstly the present picture, which appeared at auction in June 1991, with was informed by the work of and Jacques Callot - both also retains the humanity that underscores all of the Albi Apostles. As buried there in 1694, indicates that he had paid for the decoration of the that of Saint Thomas (fig. 4; Tokyo, The National Museum of Western of whom produced their own series of Apostles - and that of Jean Le Philip Conisbee has observed: ‘…in La Tour’s interpretation they are not chapel during his lifetime: ‘vivens hanc capellam suis sumptibus ornavit’. Art) being sold the following day. In 2005, the original of Saint James Clerc. Le Clerc, who settled in Nancy in 1622, had studied in Rome with the remote, glorious saints criticized by the Protestant reformers in the It has now been established that twelve of the pictures were sent from the Greater (fig. 5; private collection) was then rediscovered and sold at when the Venetian was under the spell of Caravaggio’s revolutionary style.

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