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This oil on panel depicting a scene of Orpheus charming the animals, attributed to Gillis Coignet, is among the highlights of Chiswick’s April 12 auction. The painting is estimated at £4,000-£6,000. Courtesy of Chiswick Auctions

Myths and legends re-emerge at Chiswick’s Old Masters sale, April 12

Sheila Gibson Stoodley
Sheila Gibson Stoodley
This oil on panel depicting a scene of Orpheus charming the animals, attributed to Gillis Coignet, is among the highlights of Chiswick’s April 12 auction. The painting is estimated at £4,000-£6,000.
This oil on panel depicting a scene of Orpheus charming the animals, attributed to Gillis Coignet, is among the highlights of Chiswick’s April 12 auction. The painting is estimated at £4,000-£6,000 ($4,900-$7,400).

LONDON – A Flemish painting depicting the much-loved scene of Orpheus charming the animals is among the highlights of Chiswick Auctions’ Old Masters sale on Wednesday, April 12. The oil on panel attributed to Gillis Coignet (Flemish, circa 1542-1599) comes from a London private collection with an earlier provenance to the dealership Dickinson Fine Art. The work is estimated at £4,000-£6,000 ($4,900-$7,400).

The Greek myth of the musician and poet Orpheus, who could tame the birds and the beasts with his lyre, was a popular subject in Renaissance art. Important to the classical literary canon, it also provided the artist with the opportunity to paint all types of exotic species. Gillis Coignet, a master of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke, often included in his pictures objects and animals that held religious significance.

From the same collection is an oil on canvas depicting Hercules enduring a brief period of servitude under Omphale as punishment for killing Iphitus. In this image of role reversal, Hercules is made to dress in women’s clothing and perform menial tasks while Omphale wears his lion skin and wields his club.

According to the records of the Fototeca Zeri, this work was on the London market before 1967 and has long been attributed to Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749), who moved from his native Montpellier to Rome after he was awarded the prestigious Prix de Rome in 1727. It has an estimate of £2,000-£3,000 ($2,400-$3,700).

Among the works by female artists at Chiswick Auctions on April 12 is ‘Nymph and Satyr’ by Marie-Francoise-Constance La Mariniere Mayer, estimated at £2,000-£3,000.
Among the works by female artists at Chiswick Auctions on April 12 is ‘Nymph and Satyr’ by Marie-Francoise-Constance La Mariniere Mayer, estimated at £2,000-£3,000 ($2,400-$3,700).

Among the works by female artists is an oil titled Nymph and Satyr by Marie-Francoise-Constance La Mariniere Mayer (1775-1821). She studied under Joseph-Benoit Suvee and Jean-Batiste Greuze before joining the studio of Jacques Louis David in 1801 and then that of Pierre-Paul Prud’hon in 1802, with whom she collaborated on a nearly equal basis.

After Prud’hon’s wife was committed to an asylum, Mayer helped raise his children, and lived close to him in the Sorbonne in an apartment given to her by Napoleon (who owned two of her paintings). She exhibited at the Paris salons from 1791 and enjoyed considerable success after the exhibition of her picture of Le Flambeau de Venus (now in the Wallace Collection, London) in 1808. Tragically, she committed suicide when Prud’hon refused to marry her. Nymph and Satyr, also from a London private collection, is estimated at £2,000-£3,000 ($2,400-$3,700).

By coincidence, a watercolor portrait of the artist is included in the sale. The 8cm miniature Constance Mayer, Self-Portrait is thought to be an early to mid-19th-century copy of the original that is held by the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. Finely painted and housed in a verre eglomise surround, it bears an estimate of £1,500-£2,500 ($1,800-$3,100).

A standout within the 40 lots of period picture frames on offer is an ebonized ‘ripple’ frame made in 17th-century Northern Italy. Its estimate is £600-£800.
A standout within the 40 lots of period picture frames on offer is an ebonized ‘ripple’ frame made in 17th-century Northern Italy. Its estimate is £600-£800 ($750-$990).

The sale also will include 40 lots of period picture frames. Among the best is an ebonized example known as a “ripple” frame, made in 17th century Northern Italy. The perfect setting for a small oil of a similar date and period, it is estimated at £600-£800 ($750-$990).

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