Michel-Ange Houasse (French, 1681-1730) Calypso... Lot 38

Michel-Ange Houasse (French, 1681-1730) Calypso welcoming Telemachus and Mentor to her island Canvas. Previously attributed to Coypel. Height 49 cm Width 60 cm. Gilded wood frame with cartouche by Noël Coypel (1628-1707) (Height 66 Width 75 cm) . Provenance : Parisian collection. Michel-Ange Houasse. A painting depicting Calypso welcoming Telemachus and Mentor to her island. In a giltwood frame bearing a "Noël Coypel" name plate. Our painting is the sketch for the tapestry carton by Michel-Ange Houasse deposited by the Prado Museum at the Granada Museum (Height 320 Width 307 cm, see exhibition catalog Miguel-Angel Houasse, 1680-1730: pintor de la Corte de Felipe V, Delegación de Cultura Patrimonio nacional, Madrid, 1981, p.118, n°13). The Spanish Embassy in Paris holds another large carton, The Banquet of Calypso and Telemachus, also deposited by the Prado Museum. Trained by his father René-Antoine Houasse, in the milieu of the painters who decorated the Trianon de Marbre, Michelangelo was admitted to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1707. He moved to Madrid in April 1715 and was appointed Pintor de Cámara by Philip V. He was the most important painter of history and genre scenes at the Spanish Bourbon court and, along with the portraitist Jean Ranc, is considered an exemplary artist in the spread of Versailles art in Europe. The series on the story of Telemachus was commissioned at the end of his life, around 1730, but was already ill and left unfinished. The subject was taken from Fénelon's book published in 1699. We would like to thank Mr. François Marandet for suggesting this attribution to Michel-Ange Houasse, based on a digital photograph.