Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings Signed and dated (lower left): C. Natoire / 1740
Gallery Label This painting dates from the moment of Natoire's greatest success, when he was living in Paris near his contemporary, François Boucher. The state of preservation is more or less perfect. In 1751 Natoire moved to Rome as director of the French Academy, while Boucher remained in Paris to become the darling of the French court. The gentle figures are typical of Natoire's work and of an eighteenth-century inclination toward intimate interpretations of religious themes.
Notes In the catalogue of the 1765 Villette sale our picture is described as the pendant to a work by Natoire's master, François Le Moyne. The latter work, which represented Adam and Eve before the Expulsion, was not included in Villette's sale and has since been lost. Engraved by Laurent Cars (fig. 50, Ref. Bordeaux, 1984), it was a replica of a larger painting of the subject by Le Moyne from about 1723–25, also lost. Our picture was engraved by Jean Jacques Flipart and the engraving was exhibited at the Salon of 1755.
Provenance Pierre Charles de Villette, marquis de Villette (by 1755–65; his estate sale, Paris, April 8, 1765, no. 32, for 532 livres); [Eugène Fischhof, Paris, until 1913; sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, June 14, 1913, no. 33, for Fr 1,900]; Lizé, Rouen; sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, November 20, 1985, no. 38, for Fr 820,000; [Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York, until 1987; sold to MMA]
Exhibition History Paris. Salon. 1740, no. 12.
New York. Stair Sainty Matthiesen. "François Boucher: His Circle and Influence," September 30–November 25, 1987, no. 57.
References Salon livret . 1740 [untitled 1740 Salon livret, published in Collection des livrets des anciennes expositions . . . , Paris, 1869, p.14] no. 12.Sale [Estate Sale of Charles de Villette, père] . Pierre Rémy, Paris. April 8, 1765, no. 32, states "Adam & Eve, après avoir péché: Dieu leur apparoît. Ce Tableau est un des plus beaux de M. Natoire (Charles); aussi l'a-t'il fait pour être pendant à un de son Maître, François le Moine: on entrouve l'Estampe gravée par Jean jacques Flipart, & qui annonce ce morceau dans le Cabinet de M. De Vilette: il est peint sur cuivre".Archives de l'art français , n.s., 21 (1949), pp. 35, 74, no. 6, identifies a a red chalk drawing in the Musée Municipal de Saint-Germain-en-Laye as a study for this picture.Letter to Elizabeth Gardner . October 3, 1972, doesn't see anything Italian in it and believes this is a French work . . . certain details seem to recall some works by the unpredictable Sebastien Bourdon".in De Watteau à David: Peintures et dessins des musées de province français . Exh. cat., Palais des Beaux-Arts. Brussels, [1975], p. 98, under no. 58, illustrates a red chalk drawing in the Musée Municipal, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, as a preparatory drawing by Natoire for our picture.François Le Moyne and his Generation, 1688–1737 . Neuilly-sur-Seine, 1984, p. 99, states that it is based on Domenichino's Expulsion of Adam and Eve (Duke of Devonshire, Chatsworth).The Dayton Art Institute Bulletin 39 (December 1984), pp. 2–3, changes the attribution of "The Temptation of Eve" in the Dayton Art Insitute from Natoire to Jean-Baptiste-Marie Pierre, his pupil; comments on the resemblance of the Dayton composition to that of our picture.in François Boucher: His Circle and Influence . Exh. cat., Stair Sainty Matthiesen. New York, 1987, pp. 93–95, no. 57, ill. (black and white and colorpl. 14), claims that this is Natoire's only work on copper; discusses its dependence on paintings of the same subject by Domenichino, which would have been known to the artist through engravings, as well as works by Coypel (Museo de Arte de Ponce, Puerto Rico) and especially Le Moyne (lost), also on copper; observes that the last—representing Adam and Eve before the Expulsion—was, like ours, owned by Pierre Charles de Villette, at whose sale in 1765 the two pictures were listed as pendants; remarks that our picture "typifies a peculiarly eighteenth-century taste for a domestic, intimate, and understated reinterpretation of the grand religious themes that had dominated High Renaissance and Baroque art".Burlington Magazine 129 (December 1987), p. 836, ill.in Guido Reni und Europa: Ruhm und Nachruhm . Exh. cat., Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. Frankfurt, 1988, p. 738, ill., mentions our painting as an example of Reni's strong influence on Natoire.in Recent Acquisitions: A Selection, 1987–1988 . New York, 1988, pp. 34–35, ill. (color).Selected French Paintings, 1700–1810, Recently on the Market with The Matthiesen Gallery and Stair Sainty Matthiesen Inc. Exh. cat.London, 1989, unpaginated, ill. in color.
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