Bidspirit auction | Jean-Baptiste Le Prince: ”L'amour à

Jean-Baptiste Le Prince: ”L'amour à l'espagnole” - LE PRINCE , JEAN-BAPTISTE 1734 Metz–1781 St-Denis-du-Port Title: ”L'amour à l'espagnole”. Technique: Oil on canvas. Mounting: Relined. Measurement: 76 x 60cm. Frame: Framed. The painter and draughtsman Jean-Baptiste Leprince was an exceptional artist of the French Rococo period. The son of a sculptor, he was initially trained in his hometown of Metz before moving to Paris around 1750, where he honed his skills in the studios of François Boucher and Joseph-Marie Viens. In 1758, Leprince decided to travel to Russia via the Netherlands; two of his siblings held high-ranking positions there, and with Elizabeth I, the country was ruled by an empress with a keen appreciation for the arts. The plan proved successful, and for around four years Jean-Baptiste Leprince decorated, amongst other things, the Empress’s private chambers in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg. During this time, however, he also undertook journeys that took him as far as Finland, Lithuania and Siberia. When he returned to Paris in 1663, he brought with him a large collection of drawings and designs featuring Russian motifs. He briefly sparked a Russian fashion in Paris when his paintings of Russian folk life were praised by critics and art connoisseurs at the Salon and disseminated through prints. Jean-Baptiste Leprince was particularly innovative in the field of printmaking: Although not definitively recognised as their inventor, he is regarded as the artist who significantly advanced the aquatint technique. Leprince was also a successful portraitist and produced popular genre scenes, which he frequently set in a historicising ambience. His paintings are now historical artefacts in leading international museums. In an exquisite period setting from the 1770s, a young woman sits asleep by an open window. A young man, playing a mandolin, leans over the window sill from outside. The salon is dimly lit; yet a strong light streams in through the window, illuminating the musician, the sleeping woman and the floral arrangement standing on a table between them. The protagonists’ costumes – the lady’s opulent white and gold dress with slit sleeves and the musician’s shirt with an ornate waistcoat – hail from an indefinable historical past. Upon closer inspection of this scene, the boundaries between reality may blur: is the man actually standing by the window, or is he a figment of the imagination that – inspired by the reading just concluded – has crept into the sleep of the blissfully slumbering woman? This painting is one of Jean-Baptiste Leprince’s most popular compositions. ”L’amour à l’espagnole” gained widespread circulation through a copperplate engraving by Augustin de Saint-Aubin and Noël Pruneau. In an expert report from 2025, the art historian François Marandet explains that the canvas presented here is likely the original painting on which the engraving was based. This would mean the painting was part of the collection of the Marquis de Livois (1736–1790), which still forms the core of the museum in Angers today:”Alles deutet darauf hin, dass unser Gemälde das Original ist und somit einem der Brüder Laborde gehörte: entweder dem Bankier Jean-Joseph de Laborde, Marquis de Méréville, der dafür bekannt war, Hubert Robert unterstützt zu haben, oder seinem jüngeren Bruder, dem Geschäftsmann Jean-Benjamin de Laborde. Neben seiner hohen technischen Qualität, seiner Reproduktion im Druck und seiner prestigeträchtigen Herkunft aus der Familie Laborde ist Leprince‘ L’Amour à l’espagnole sicherlich eine der besten Genreszenen aus der Spätphase der Herrschaft Ludwigs XV.”. Provenance: - Private ownership, Germany; originally presumably part of the Marquis de Livois Collection (1736–1790), c. 1780. Appraisal: François Marandet, 01.12.2025, copy enclosed. Estimated shipping costs for this lot: The lot is unsuitable for parcel shipping. Transport only by shipping company after consultation following the auction. additional shipping insurance Shipping insurance up to total invoice amount of 25,000 Euros: max. 41.65 Euro over a total invoice amount of 25,000 Euros: 1.8 o/oo USA by individual arrangement after the auction. #Jean-Baptiste Le Prince #French School #Rococo #France #18th C. #Gallant Scenes #Musical instrument #Old Masters.