attributed to Noel Coypel (1628 - 1707). Zéphyr and Flora around 1700

102 cm by 81 cm re-lined canvas
116 cm by 77 cm frame

This superb painting is attributed to Noel Coypel, the work corresponds to his painting of the 1700s. Note that another work by the artist, Venus and Adonis exhibited at the Rennes fine arts museum offers us, among other stylistic similarities, a Venus with a face very close to our Flora. Flore would be a nymph from the Fortunate Islands, today's Canary Islands. She has the features of a young woman crowned with flowers. Her husband Zéphyr, in the guise of a young man, spreads a pair of butterfly wings behind her back. In Greek mythology, it is the personalization of a gentle west wind. "It blows on the earth with so much gentleness, and yet with so much power, that its breath gives life to plants, colors flowers and fruits"

Noël Coypel (Paris 1628; 1707).

In the capital, he joined the workshop of Noël Quillerier. His progress was so rapid that in 1646, aged only 18, he was employed to create the sets for the opera Orpheus. He then worked with Charles Errard at the Oratory and then on the decorations of the King's bedroom at the Louvre. From this date he was asked to participate in all the works commissioned by the king for whom he would then work exclusively for nearly 20 years. Thus, in 1655, he painted several paintings for the apartments of the king, at the Louvre, of Cardinal Mazarin, and during the marriage of Louis XIV, the ceilings of the apartment of the queen, those of the engine room (the opera ) at the Tuilleries and other compositions at Fontainebleau, In 1663 he became an academician with his reception piece: the Reprobation of Cain after the death of Abel. He worked for the Royal Palace, for the Great Audience Chamber of the Parliament of Brittany and for Versailles in the Queen's Guard Room. Appointed director of the Académie de France in Rome, he stayed there from 1673 to 1675 with his son Antoine and his brother-in-law, the landscape painter Charles Hérault. During this period, his taste for Antiquity develops and is found naturally in his works. Back in France, his influence was great and his work intense. Colbert, former superintendent of buildings with whom he did not get along at all is no longer there to overshadow him. Noël Coypel is the founder of a dynasty which worked within the Royal Academy for almost a century. His descendants, Antoine Coypel, appointed First Painter to the King in 1715, Noël-Nicolas Coypel, professor at the Academy from 1733 and Charles-Antoine Coypel, also First Painter to the King from 1746,