Ceres Begging for Jupiter’s Thunderbolt After the Kidnapping of His Daughter Proserpine
Oil on canvas
200 x 250 cm
Morceau d’agrément of the artist, in 1777
Exhibition:
Salon of 1777 (not included in catalogue).
This painting, which has recently reappeared, is doubly notable for its fine proportions and its history, and is an ornamental piece by the painter Antoine-François Callet. We are in 1777; the artist, then aged 36, is already a well-known, valued painter. Far from being a beginner, Callet has already honoured some prestigious orders, such as the frescoes on the ceiling of the Palazzo Serra in Genoa (1773) and the dazzling décor of the Salon de Compagnie in the Palais Bourbon (1774).
He was an artist at the height of his powers who, at the 1777 Show, presented a painting, outside the catalogue, that was beautifully mastered in terms of its conception, technique and colour work.
The superbly worked composition is the outcome of a long period of reflection, the development of which can be seen in the four known or documented preparatory drawings and a painted sketch kept in the Museum of Fine Art in Quimper (Silguy bequest, oil on canvas, H. 0.31 ; W. 0.42). In 1993, we dedicated a short article (Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, no. 2, 1993, pp. 52-58) to the rediscovery of the sketch preparatory to Callet’s ornamental piece, which had been kept under the wrong name.
Through the sketch we were able to find the memory of a vital painting that we thought was lost for ever. The comparison between the sketch and the final painting shows that, although the composition perfectly follows that of the sketch, the painter gives an imposing majesty to the figures of Jupiter and Juno in the final painting that they did not have in the preparatory work. The character of Ceres, vital to an understanding of the subject, appears to by agitated by passion, in the very theatrical disorder of a face bathed with tears. The two majestic figures of the Gods give the work its imperious solemnity, the very restrained tone that is the mark of the “grand genre” peculiar to the art of the second part of the 18th Century, of which Callet showed himself, very early, to be one of the great representatives. The critics were not mistaken in saying that Callet’s painting was “great in form”.
At the height of his virtuosity in the years 1775-1780, Callet also shows here a particularly dazzling technique in the fine glaze used in the sensual rendition of the skin, especially that of the muscled body of Jupiter, and in the silky precision of Ceres’ curly blond hair or that of Jupiter, half white and blond, rendered with great carer and realism. The artist works lovely impastos, giving full relief to the dazzling whites of Ceres’ sleeves and, further on, uses a lighter brushstroke to give an illusionist rendition of the clouds. Finally, the monochrome, bronze colours in the little Quimper sketch stand out here in superb confrontations of golden yellow, blue, vivid red and a pink red on Ceres’ face, giving the distraught goddess an even greater sense of vigour and agitation. Opposite, the response comes from the red representing Jupiter’s power, subtly combined with a deep blue.
We have here, in spirit and form, an example of a magnificently successful painting that brilliantly shows, as one of the critics noted at the 1777 Show, how much “Mr. Callet (…) is the one (of all the artist in the Show) who demonstrates the most soul and fire.”
Brigitte Gallini
March 2008
