Satyr conversing with a Nymph, attributed to Claude Mellan

4 7/8" x 7" (124 x 178 mm) - framed 12 1/4" x 16 3/4" (31 x 42.5 cm)
Provenance: Collection from central Italy in the 17th century (Stamp - probably L. 3900 - on the front, top left)
Sir Joshua Reynolds (1723 - 1792), stamped lower right (L. 2364)

This mythological drawing from the collection of Sir Joshua Reynolds has long been attributed to Pietro da Cortona, as evidenced by the inscriptions at the bottom and on the reverse. While the Italian collection stamp (which predates Reynolds') suggests that this drawing was executed in Italy in the 17th century, it seems to us to be much closer to the drawings produced in Rome in the entourage of Simon Vouet. Its numerous hatchings, evocative of burin work, and its luminous composition lead us to suggest an attribution to Claude Mellan, who befriended Vouet on his arrival in Rome in 1624.

1. The stay in Vouet's studio, an important phase in Claude Mellan's training

Claude Mellan was born on May 23, 1598 in Abbeville, where his father worked as a boilermaker and copper planer. In 1615, at the age of 17, he was apprenticed to Jean V Leclerc, a mediocre Parisian engraver. Nine years later, in 1624, he left for Rome with the support of Provencal scholar Nicolas-Claude Fabri de Peiresc.

Having established contact with the engraver Francesco Villamena (who died two months after his arrival in Rome), Mellan quickly made friends with the painter Simon Vouet, then at the height of his reputation in Rome thanks to his recent appointment as director of the Accademia de San Luca. Simon Vouet and Gian Lorenzo Bernini (known as Le Bernin) were to be Mellan's two great teachers in the apprenticeship of drawing, an essential step for the artist who wished to devote himself entirely to engraving. Vouet encouraged Mellan to draw portraits; as Mariette noted, "he recommended above all that he draw and subject all other studies to this study, convinced, and with good reason, that this part, which is the foundation of painting, must also be the foundation of engraving" .

Vouet entrusted him with the engraving of some of his works, and the success of these prints established Mellan as a recognized engraver, enabling him to remain in Rome after his master's departure in 1627, thanks to prestigious commissions such as the engraving of some of the sculptures in the Galleria Giustianiana.

In 1636, Claude Mellan left Rome, passed through Genoa and returned to France. He went to Aix-en-Provence, to stay with his former protector, the scholar Peiresc, where he arrived in early August. It was at Peiresc's home that he produced three famous prints depicting three views of the phases of the moon, observed under the direction of Pierre Gassendi through a telescope supplied by Galileo.

Claude Mellan moved to the Louvre in 1642, where he remained until his death in 1688. He renewed contact with his former master Simon Vouet as soon as he settled in Paris. In 1649, he engraved his best-known print, La Sainte Face, in which he reproduces the face of Christ miraculously appearing on the linen handed to him by Saint Veronique, modulating the width of a single concentric burin stroke starting from the tip of the nose.

2. Drawing description

Depicted seated on a balustrade adorned with a vase, a satyr (recognizable by his horse-like legs) gazes with a certain concupiscence at a nymph seated opposite him on the ground, probably at the foot of a tree. Both are wearing pampers.

While the nymph's back and the satyr's torso are executed with great delicacy, using small, precise strokes, the bark of the tree, the fur on the satyr's legs and the sky are evoked by broader, more supple strokes. The drawing technique is particularly reminiscent of Claude Mellan's art as a burinist: he uses "a syntax that rejects the crossing of sizes and relies exclusively on the variation of line thickness, as much as on the fluidity of their curves, seeking to create an optical illusion that allows a 'spatial tonality' to be restored by the simple division of blacks and whites: every scene is thus immersed in a bath of light intended to give the feeling of color".

3. Related artworks

Although Claude Mellan is best known for his prints, he was also an important draughtsman. Most of Claude Mellan's surviving drawings are portraits although there are also a few rare compositions like the one here. Let's take a look at some of the drawings on which we have based this attribution.

Two composition drawings in the Musée du Louvre are particularly interesting for their technical similarities. We find, for example, the broad hatching of the satyr's legs in the neck and the toupee on top of the donkey's head in The Flight into Egypt (4th picture in the gallery).

The representation of the nymph whose legs are wrapped in a sheet, and the treatment of the bark on the right, can be compared with the Sainte-Marie Madeleine (which also has the peculiarity of having one foot larger than the other, due to the attempt at foreshortening - (5th picture in the gallery)!)

Perhaps more anecdotally, it seems to us that the faces of our two figures can also be linked to two works by Mellan, this time in the NationalMuseum in Stockholm. The head of the satyr and the Portrait of the Doge of Genoa (7th picture in the gallery), the lost profile of the nymph wearing a tassel in the Head with a turban (last picture in the gallery), offer interesting similitudes.

4. Provenance and framing

Although unidentified, the mark at top right on the front of our sheet refers to an anonymous collection established in central Italy in the mid-17th century, which leads us to believe that our drawing was probably made during Mellan's stay in Rome, between 1624 and 1636.

Our drawing later found its way into the collection of Sir Joshuah Reynolds, the leader of the 18th-century English school and arguably the finest collector of drawings among the painters of his time. The mark was affixed by the executors of the will of Lady Thomond, his niece, to whom he had bequeathed the bulk of his drawing collection. They marked the best drawings (including ours) on the front. There were 1163 of these, valued at 10s. 6d. and above, and 342 valued at 7s. 6d., 5s. and 2s. 6d. The lower drawings, estimated at less than these prices, were stamped on the reverse; these numbered 748. The ensemble was dispersed in a series of sales between May 26, 1794 and May 26, 1821, whose catalogs are not detailed enough to identify the drawings presented.

Our drawing is framed in a 17th-century Bolognese reverse-profile frame in carved and gilded wood, decorated with foliage.

Main bibliographical references :
Claude Mellan l'écriture de la méthode - catalog of the exhibition held at the Musée Jenish in Vevey from October 30, 2015 to February 7, 2016

Louis-Antoine Prat - French drawing in the 17th century - Musée du Louvre / Somogy éditions d'art, Paris 2013

Jacques Thuillier / Barbara Brejon de Lavergnée / Denis Lavalle - Vouet - catalog of the exhibition held at the Galeries nationales du Grand Palais from November 6, 1990 to February 11, 1991