Founded in 1923 the Didier Aaron gallery is in its third generation and is now directed from New York by Hervé Aaron. To enable a closer relationship with its clients, the gallery is also represented at prestigious locations in Paris, directed by Bruno Desmarest, and London. At its three locations the gallery shows important works of art from the 17th-20th centuries.
The gallery counts among its clients some of the greatest museums worldwide and in recent years has sold some significant works of art, including paintings by Titian and Nicolas Lancret.
Antoine COYPEL
(1661 Paris 1722)
Democritus
Oil on canvas
46 x 35.8 cm
Circa 1692
Provenance: Private collection, Italy
Antoine learned to paint from his father, Noël Coypel (1628–1707), who served as director of the French Academy in Rome from 1673 to 1675. Particularly moved and inspired by Baroque works, his colorful brushwork retained throughout his life the memory of this art of expression, freedom, and passion.
At only twenty years of age and having just returned to France, Antoine Coypel became a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1681.
The painter was sought after for numerous prestigious commissions, notably in the royal residences of Marly, Meudon, and Fontainebleau, culminating in the vault of the Royal Chapel at the Palace of Versailles in 1716.
Nevertheless, his most iconic work is his portrait of the pre-Socratic philosopher Democritus, housed at the Louvre Museum (Antoine Coypel, Laughing Democritus, 1692). Through this painting, the artist reveals his love for pictorial passion, emotion, and color, reflecting his admiration for Rubens (to whom the portrait was, mistakenly, attributed).
The warmth emanating from the rosy cheeks of this face is equally palpable in our painting, which shares the same subject and the same vibrant touch.
During the dispute between the Poussinists and the Rubensists within the Academy at the end of the 17th century, Coypel was a fervent defender of color, and it was as a true Rubenist that Coypel painted this canvas, both through his rapid brushwork—anticipating Fragonard’s style at the end of the 18th century—and by embracing the freedom of his subject: a face for its own sake, a « Tête d’expression ».
Our painting thus ranks among the variations the artist produced of these very sketchy faces, as close to the colorful and joyful Flemish tradition as it is to the grimacing Dutch visage.
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