BIGOT, Trophîme - b. ~1600 Arles, d. 1650 Avignon - WGA

BIGOT, Trophîme

(b. ~1600 Arles, d. 1650 Avignon)

Bigot, who was probably born in Arles, has just one picture certainly attributed to him, and it survives only as an engraving made towards the end of the seventeenth century. It is a Christ in the Carpenter’s Shop. Round this lost painting was grouped a whole series of Caravaggesque pictures, apparently French in origin although derived from Honthorst in colour and general composition. Recent research has proved that this group is not coherent. Two large pictures painted for (and still in) the Church of Santa Maria in Aquiro, Rome, are documented as being a certain “Maestro Jacopo”, although they were formerly attributed to Bigot.

A Doctor Weighing Urine (Ashmolean Museum, Oxford) is an example of the unusual subjects Bigot sometimes favoured.

The theory that there were two painters of the same name is borne out by the fact that the other Trophîme Bigot (who was born in Arles in 1579 and also worked there and in Aix-en-Provence) had a totally different style, as a signed picture by him demonstrates. It is inconceivable that the pictures listed under Trophîme Bigot were painted by this second artist, whose Mannerist pictures were produced for churches in and around Arles.

A Doctor Examining Urine

This painting is unique in French art (but common in the North). The whole treatment is much closer to Netherlandish than to Italian art, with the artist using brick-red tones for the faces and concentrating on strange facial expression.

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Boy Singeing a Bat's Wings

A more sympathetic side of the artist’s character can be seen in this painting than in the Doctor Examining Urine. This is much closer to an Italian model.

This painting is one of a series of similar pictures in the Doria Pamphilj collection.

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St Jerome

This painting is attributed to the problematic French painter Trophime Bigot. Documented as active in Rome from 1620 to 1634, Bigot is mentioned by Sandrart as a painter of nocturnal pictures of half figures. A series of candlelit paintings now attributed to him were formerly given to the “Candlelight Master”. Once considered to all be by the same hand, the paintings in that group have now been separated into three different sets. The first and most consistent of these retains the name of the Candlelight Master, who has been identified as Bigot. The second set is attributed to a “Maestro Jacopo”, author of a Pietà in the Passion Chapel of the church of Santa Maria in Aquiro. The remaining pictures of this group form a third, more diverse set that is attributed to the circle of Bigot. On the basis of convincing similarities with other confirmed works, most importantly the Crowning of Christ with the Crown of Thorns from Santa Maria in Aquiro, the National Gallery Saint Jerome has been placed in the category of original works by Bigot. The picture also has a pendant depicting Jerome’s fellow-penitent St. Mary Magdalene, now in the Museum of Art at Ponce.

The distinctive effect of the candlelight visible in the Jerome, light that obliterates many of the details of the saint’s anatomy, is typical of the works of Bigot.

According to a recent proposal, the candlelight is a symbolic visualization of the “Lux Intellecti”, a metaphor for Divine Grace discussed by Saint Augustine.

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