VIGOUREUX-DUPLESSIS, Jacques

Jacques Vigoureux-Duplessis is recognized mainly for his Oriental style works, especially for his Chinoiserie. The present canvas depicts ladies on a walk accompanied by a performance of Chinese acrobats. The subject is treated with a surprising colour palette.

Originally mounted as a screen to cover a fireplace during warm weather, in this exotic painting the artist has transformed the hearth into a miniature stage. Three fanciful Chinese characters hold aloft a circular screen on which is depicted the mythological story of Zeus showering Danaë with gold. A pair of figures, painted in grisaille on the side wall, incise their names on a tree trunk, a motif symbolizing eternal love.

In 1700, Jacques Vigoureux-Duplessis, a painter-cartoonist at the Beauvais tapestry works, produced this fireplace screen, designed to mask a hearth in summer. It was not only a fine manifesto of ironic virtuosity, but also prefigured the great era of whimsy to come. The three Chinese men on the screen, straight out of the theater, laughingly lift a tondo featuring Danaë, in a spirit of libertinage echoed by the imitation antique relief.

Screen decoration called for light hearted, trompe-l’oeil technique. But here, the accumulation of artifices - curtain, stage, erotic tondo - gives it a particularly risqu� atmosphere. Something quite different from the “grand manner” now had its place in French art.

The fireplace screen is the earliest recorded work of Vigoureux-Duplessis, an artist who was associated with decorative projects for the Paris Opera, the Royal Academy of Music, and the Beauvais Tapestry Manufactory.

The painting shows three Siamese ambassadors in ceremonial costumes, accompanied by their interpreter, Father Artus de Lionne.