(1644–1720) A study of a monk of the Franciscan Order, black and white chalk, on greyish tinted laid paper, inscribed “EL” (?) by another hand, 32,2 x 22 cm, mounted, framed, (Sch)

Provenance:
Private collection, Frankreich.

With a certificate of Marijke Michielin.

The present drawing depicts a study of a franciscan monk, which can be recognised by attributes such as the knots of the rope and the particular shape of the hood’s habit. The French painter Arnould de Vuez (Saint-Omer 1664 -Lille 1720) painted a series of ten paintings of large dimensions for the Franciscan Récollets Monastery Church in Lille. The cycle was a prestigious commission and probably one of Vuez’s first important ones that he received shortly after his arrival in Lille in 1694.
The Récollets monks had finished the construction of a new church for their monastery two years earlier, in 1692. Along with three altar paintings by flemish painter Anthony Van Dyck, the cycle of paintings commissioned to Arnould de Vuez was to be exposed in the main aisle of the church.
Vuez’s ten paintings depict episodes of the lives of Saint Francis of Assisi, Saint Bonaventure, and Saint Anthony of Padua. Five of this paintings are now in Lille’s Musée des Beaux-Arts, one other in Renne’s museum, while the whereabouts of the four other paintings are unknown today.
The present study is close to some of the figures in two of the paintings now in Lille: both figures of Saint Bonaventure in Saint Thomas Aquinas visiting Saint Bonaventure and Saint Bonaventure receiving communion from an angel show profiles very close to our drawing (for the paintings in Lille’s museum see. Arnaud Brejon de Lavergnée, Catalogue sommaire illustré des peintures du palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille, II, Ecole française, Paris, RMN, 2001, p. 187-188 n° P408 and P423). But neither of the attitudes of saint Bonaventure match with the study figure. As its technique is quite advanced, the sheet is very probably one of the last in the process of studies. It is then more likely that our sheet is a preparatory figure for a Saint Bonaventure in one of the four lost paintings.

Arnould de Vuez was a prolific producer of drawings, and a large number of his drawings are still in the hands of his descendants. Nonetheless, about 160 drawings were bought by the Palais des Beaux-Arts de Lille some twenty years ago. Arnould de Vuez’ drawings show the use of various techniques, as well as a variety of genre. His maniera reminds of Seventeenth century French painters Simon Vouet (1590-1649) and Charles Le Brun (1619-1690) (see. Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée, “Un Lillois retrouvé, Arnould de Vuez dessinateur”, in Hommage au dessin, mélanges offerts à Roseline Bacou, Rimini, Galleria editrice, 1996, p. 399 and following).