Michel Serre (1658 – 1733) - Achilles Among The Daughters Of Lycomedes

Michel SERRE (Tarragona, Spain, 1658 – Marseille, 1733)
Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes

Oil on canvas. H. 0.59; L. 0.74.

Our painting (fig. 1) is a very rare example of the painter Michel Serre’s (Tarragona, Spain, 1658 – Marseille, 1733) work in the purely mythological domain. Of Catalan origin, Michel Serre went to Italy in the early 1670s before settling in Marseille, where he became the most important painter in the city. Working for local religious congregations (Carthusians, Our Lady of Mount Carmel, Great Augustinians), he was also commissioned to decorate churches in Aix-en-Provence (Saint-Jean-de-Malte church, see fig. 2, Saint-Jean-Baptiste du Faubourg) and more generally for those in the Provence region (Draguignan, La Ciotat, and even Manosque).

However, this volume of religious commissions is such that it has overshadowed the secular aspect of Michel Serre’s art (see Marie-Claude Homet, Michel Serre and Baroque Painting in Provence, Aix-en-Provence, 1987). This aspect of his production seemed to have disappeared, but more recent research has brought to light a few examples. Such is the case of a Challenge of the Pierides (sale Paris, Hôtel Drouot, May 28, 2014, no. 13) and a Renaud and Armide, which had been kept anonymously at the Nantes Museum of Fine Arts since 1810 (fig. 3) (see F. Marandet, Bon Boullogne (1649-1717, A Master of the Grand Siècle (exhibition catalog, Dijon, Musée Magnin), Paris, 2014, pp. 108-109).

The marked chiaroscuro and the use of bright tones allowed Michel Serre to be recognized as the author of the composition in Nantes, which is known through two other versions. This secular vein seems to have been stimulated by Michel Serre's stay in Paris and his contacts with Bon Boullogne, who introduced him to the Royal Academy on December 6, 1704. One of Michel Serre's two reception pieces indeed illustrated a mythological subject: Bacchus and Ariadne (lost at the Caen Museum of Fine Arts during the bombings of 1944, but known through photographs).

Upon his return to Marseille, Michel Serre then undertook a series of mythological paintings. As Marie-Claude Homet reminds us (Homet, op. cit. p. 139), sources keep the memory of a Bacchanal and a Bacchus and Ariadne painted by Michel Serre for the Marseilles amateur Jean-Paul de Foresta. Similarly, it is known that Serre executed two paintings for the Aix parliamentarian Maliverny, representing, one, Jupiter and Antiope, the other, Venus and Adonis. These paintings seem lost, as well as the one depicting Ulysses and Circe, executed by Michel Serre for the Count of Grignan.

The painting we present, whose chiaroscuro and coloring are typical of Michel Serre’s style, offers other common points with his art, notably the arbitrary lighting on one of the reclining young women, exactly as in Renaud and Armide (fig. 3). Equally recognizable is the exchange formed between the viewer and a figure placed in the center. In The Apotheosis of Saint Augustine, dominated by the chromatic range dear to Michel Serre (Aix-en-Provence, Saint-Jean de Malte church; fig. 2), the angel in the center looks at us with a smiling expression. This is exactly what is observed with Achilles disguised as a woman. It would not be surprising to learn that the choice of subject resulted from the influence of Bon Boullogne since Achilles among the Daughters of Lycomedes, known through two versions, ensured his success with collectors (Tournus, Greuze Museum, and Jean-Pierre Changeux collection, Paris). This theme had anti-dramatic resources that indeed appealed to the new generation of French amateurs. Knowing this modern dimension, it seems remarkable that Michel Serre’s painting was conceived "in the taste of the day": the mythological subject is indeed set in a modern palace and not an ancient one.

Everything suggests a work commissioned by a Provençal amateur from the early 18th century, and one might wonder if there were not other paintings forming part of the same series. Given the presence of Ulysses, who came to unmask Achilles (depicted from behind alongside Diomedes), our painting was perhaps accompanied by one depicting Ulysses and Circe, which Michel Serre had painted for the Count of Grignan.

François Marandet, December 14, 2020.