The Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés in Paris: Le Roi mage Balthazar et sa suite
Etienne Fessard French
After Charles Joseph Natoire French
Not on view
From a series of fifteen plates engraved by Fessard after the paintings by Natoire in the Chapel of the Enfants-Trouvés, Paris. The chapel was built in 1746-50 based on designs by Germain Boffrand, but destroyed in the 19th century. The main altar depicted The Adoration of the Magi and subsidiary scenes included the children and nuns of the orphanage as onlookers. Natoire’s scenes were set into trompe l’oeil surrounds painted by Paolo Antonio and Gaetano Brunetti, giving the illusion that the viewer was standing in a ruined building. Fessard’s suite of prints includes a perspective view of the interior based on a drawing by Augustin de Saint-Aubin
59.570.49. The print depicting the ceiling (Caviglia-Brunel, 2012, under *P.195, p.360) is missing from the Met’s set.
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