After Jean-Baptiste Le Prince
(French, 1734-1781)

"The Docile Beasts Under the Spell of Circe"

oil on canvas
after the original by Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609-1664), unsigned, verso with early 20th-century inventory/exhibition label attributing the work to Le Prince. Framed.
25-1/2" x 31-5/8"

Notes: Jean-Baptiste Le Prince was a prominent French artist, who had an illustrious career as a court painter to Catherine the Great at the Imperial Palace, St. Petersburg. A native of Metz, France, he entered the studio of the esteemed academic painter Francois Boucher (1703-1770) , becoming one of his most accomplished students, perfecting pastoral and genre scenes through his studies as a copyist and etcher and later through his travails in Russia where it is believed that he developed the aquatint process. Le Prince was likely exposed to the works of Castiglione (1609-1664) through Boucher, who was an admirer of Venetian eighteenth century painting, particularly Castiglione's virtuoso execution of rustic caravans and animals. The work offered here, likely painted before Le Prince left for Russia in 1757, was a favored subject Castiglione painted many times- the story of Circe from Book X of the Odyssey. In Homer's epic poem, Odysseus and his men encounter Circe- a sorceress with an enchanting mansion in the woods surrounded by her companions- tamed wild beasts . After inviting Odysseus' men into her home for a feast, she drugs them with a magic potion before transforming them, at the wave of a wand, into swine to accompany her other metamorphosized guests. Instead of swine proper, Castiglione took several artistic liberties, depicting a multitude of animals to showcase the extraordinary bravura of his talent.