MASTER OF THE MONOGRAM C.G.I.
An Artist in his Studio
signed with the initials C.G.I. in the lower left
oil on canvas
25 x 36 ¾ inches (63.5 x 93.4 cm.)
PROVENANCE
A.M. Florimond Robertet de la Tour Maubourg, Paris, by 1934
Eustache de Lorey, Paris (Ambassador to Syria) from whom purchased a half ownership, June 16, 1936, by
The Brummer Gallery, Paris & New York, inventory number H -136 until
Their sale, Parke – Bernet Galleries, New York, January 29, 1949, lot 281, illustrated
Private Collection, Roanoke, Virginia, until 2024
EXHIBITED
Paris, Musée de l’Orangerie, Les Peintres de la Réalité en France au
XVIIe Siècle, November 24, 1934 – March 24, 1935, no. 123 (on loan
from A.M. Florimond Robertet de la Tour Maubourg, Paris)
Minnesota, Minneapolis Institute of Art (on loan from The Brummer Gallery,
New York, circa 1936 – 1940)
LITERATURE
Charles Sterling, “Maitre au Monogramme C.G.I.” in Les Peintres
de la Réalité en France au XVIIe Siècle, Musée de l’Orangerie, 1934,
pp. 171-172, no. 123
Charles Sterling, “Les Peintres de la Réalité en France au XVIIe Siècle:
les enseignements d’une exposition” in La Revue de l’art ancien et
moderne, no. 359, February 1935, p. 61
Guillaume Janneau, La Peinture Française au XVIIe Siècle, Pierre Cailler, Geneva, 1965, p. 94
E. Benezit, “Maitre au Monogramme C.G.I.” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 3, Libraire Gründ,
Paris, 1976, p. 311
Pierre Georgel, “Introduction”, and “Peintre inconnu, Maître au
monogramme C.G.I.” in Orangerie, 1934 : les “peintres de la réalité”,
Musée de l’Orangerie, 2006, pp. 22, 281 – 282, 341, no. 123,
illustrated (as location unknown)
This painting is thought to be the only surviving work by the artist known as the Master of the Monogram C.G.I. Charles Sterling wrote regarding this painting in the 1934 exhibition at the Musée de l’ Orangerie, “We do not know of any French painter or engraver from the 17th century whose name could correspond to this monogram”. When the show was remounted at the museum in 2006 no further information on this work or the artist had been found.[1]
The impetus behind the painting is perhaps best explained by the declaration in Essay des Merveilles de nature et des plus nobles artifices written in 1621 by the Frenchman Etienne Binnet stressing the importance of gentlemen visiting an artist’s studio:
“When you speak of painting […] one of the most noble arts of the world [ …] [to do so] you must have visited the studio and disputed with the master, have seen the magic marks of the pencil, and the unerring judgement with which the details are worked out.”[2]
Following such dictums scenes of the well-to-do visiting artists’ studios became popular. Here in a large airy studio with a wood beamed ceiling light pours in from high patterned glass windows and open doorways. Dogs and monkeys are strewn across the foreground. An artist is at work painting a sibyl, his hat perched jauntily on top of the easel. An inventory of the tools and props of the trade can be seen lining the shelves to his right including the prerequisite glass of wine and jug behind him. Near at hand are wooden stools with pigments in open paper wrappers and a paint filled palette. Finished works are displayed everywhere which include examples of portraiture, historical and mythological scenes as well as landscapes. On an easel in the center of the composition, following a trend that started in The Netherlands but soon seen in France, Germany and England, is an example of “estate portraiture”. One could have their chateau painted, or purchase via canvas implied ownership.[3] Overall the diversity of genres depicted made for a great advertisement of the range and talent of the studio.
Outside elegant visitors stroll the terraced garden, while two potential clients enter from the porticoed veranda through separate doorways. In the studio along the back wall is a large painting depicting Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife that has caught the attention of an aristocratic family. Fascinatingly when our painting was included in the 2006 exhibition catalog at the Musée de l ‘Orangerie via reproduction, Jean-Pierre Cuzin in the entry identified this scene of Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife as after a now lost painting by Jacques Blanchard. Its image is known only from an engraving by Cornelis Bloemaert which Cuzin dates from 1630 – 1635. He further states that our painting must have been executed slightly later, and that Blanchard’s work ties the Master of the Monogram C.G.I. to the region of Paris.[4]
“In the 1630s artistic activity in Paris suddenly matured and the next twenty years were to be the most exciting and inventive period of painting, scarcely to be rivaled until just before and during the French Revolution.” It was also a period of rapid stylistic changes.[5] Reflective of a painter in sync with his times, this captivating view of an artist’s studio demonstrates the Master of the Monogram C.G.I.’s chameleon-like ability to meet whatever style the market demanded, but perhaps it is such diversity which has also made the artist’s identity a mystery for centuries.
“The Brummer Galleries … through its successive iterations in Paris and New York, the family firm was one of the most internationally prominent and commercially successful of the first half of the twentieth century, and the vast array and high quality of the objects it traded and exhibited are remarkable.”[6]
We would like to thank Tom Rassieur of the Minneapolis Institute of Art for his assistance in the writing of this entry.
[1] Charles Sterling, op.cit., 1934, p. 172; and Pierre Georgel, op.cit., p. 281.
[2] Lara Yeager-Crasselt, “Knowledge and practice pictured in the artist’s studio” in De Zeventiende Eeuw, no. 32, 2016, pp. 191-192. Binnet’s book would be reprinted a number of times throughout the seventeenth century.
[3] Barbara SoRelle Bacot, “Marie Adrien Persac – Artist of an American Landscape” in Marie Adrien Persac, Louisiana Artist, Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2000, p. 13.
[4] Pierre Georgel, op.cit., p. 281. Jacques Blanchard from 1636 until his death in 1638 was the Peintre du Roi.
[5] Christopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century, Little Brown and Company, Boston, 1985, pp. 60, 93.
[6] Christel H. Force, Yaëlle Biro & Christine E. Brennan, “Introduction” in The Brummer Galleries, Paris and New York, Defining Taste from Antiquities to the Avant – Garde, Brill, Leiden & Boston, 2023, p.1.