Presumed portrait of the painter Antoine Coypel in his studio around 1700

Presumed portrait of the painter Antoine Coypel in his studio around 1700 by Louis de Sylvestre (1675; 1760).

38 cm by 31 cm re-lined canvas
Frame of 52 cm by 45 cm

This small painting of the artist in his studio is possibly a project before the realization of a larger format. We can propose an attribution to Louis de Sylvestre (1675; 1760) around 1700.

Louis de Sylvester (1675; 1760)

Fourth son of Israel Sylvestre and his wife Henriette Sélincart, Louis Silvestre the younger, after having undoubtedly studied the first rudiments of drawing under the guidance of his father, was admitted to take courses at the Academy. Pupil of Charles Le Brun, he entered Bon Boullogne's studio after his death.
From 1693 to 1699, he traveled to Italy with his older brother Charles François, stayed in Rome where he received advice from Carlo Maratta and won a prize awarded by the Roman Academy of Saint Luke. He also visits Venice and Lombardy. In 1700, back in Paris, Louis Silvestre the younger developed a fine business. Louis XIV commissioned various paintings from him, including an altarpiece for the Chapel of the Sacraments in Versailles. He was admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting in 1702, appointed assistant professor in 1704; established in 1706, he was to be promoted to vice-rector in 1720.
History painter, he worked for the Buildings, undertook several important works for Parisian churches, exhibited at the Salon of 1704 and tried his hand at portraiture. The list of works that we know of him during this period cannot sum up all his activity. It is likely that a certain number of works carried out for individuals escape us. Following the stay in Paris of the Electoral Prince of Saxony, son of the Elector, King of Poland, Louis Silvestre the Younger succeeded in getting himself hired by the Court of Saxony, one of the most brilliant, if not the most brilliant Court of Europe, after that of Versailles.
He marries Marie Catherine Hérault in 1706. From their union will be born in 1708 Marie-Maxilienne who will become Reader, friend and confidante of the Dauphine Marie Josephe of Saxony.
In 1716 only, he left for Dresden to fulfill his job as first painter of His Polish Majesty. His stay abroad was to last thirty-two years, during which he practiced all genres. Staying sometimes in Saxony sometimes in Warsaw, called to Prussia and Bohemia, he thus accumulated an abundant body of work. Placed in 1727 at the head of the Dresden Academy of Painting, although his influence was significantly exaggerated, he nevertheless remained one of the most interesting propagandists of French art and taste across the Rhine.
Passionate amateurs of the masterpieces of Italy and Flanders, Auguste II, then his son and successor Auguste III also seem to have valued the work of Silvestre. In 1741, Augustus III even granted him letters of nobility. From that moment on, our artist was for his contemporaries no more than Louis de Silvestre.
In 1748 he returned to France. Greeted with sympathy in Paris by his colleagues at the Academy, he was immediately named former rector. After the death of Charles Antoine Coypel in 1752, Louis de Silvestre was elected director of the Academy, more in his capacity as a former pupil of Le Brun, as a survivor of a heroic period in the history of art, than out of respect for his current achievements.
Housed in the galleries of the Louvre since 1755, Louis de Silvestre died there on April 11, 1760, more than octogenarian.