JEAN DE SAINT-IGNY - Lot 46

JEAN DE SAINT-IGNY Rouen, between 1595 and 1600 - Rouen, 1647 Capture of a city during the Thirty Years' War Pen in black ink, wash in brown and gray ink, watercolor in blue and green. Lined in full on watermarked paper with the coat of arms of France, cut irregularly with its tab on the reverse for mounting in the album. Taken from an in-folio album, dismembered in recent years, bound with the royal coat of arms and containing a number of drawings and prints intended for the military education of the young Louis XIV. Dimensions: 38.5 x 49.2 cm With frame : 57 x 68 cm This important drawing accurately depicts the movement of troops who took part in the capture of a town during the Thirty Years' War. The participation of the designated regiments allows us to situate this action just after 1632. Jean de Saint-Igny was a draughtsman and painter established in Rouen and then Paris from 1620 onwards. As a painter, between 1629 and 1632 he created decorations for the chapel of Notre-Dame des Petits-Augustins, and later for the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Saint-Gervais-saint Protais and other sites. At the same time, from 1629 onwards, he designed and engraved a number of fashionable collections, such as Théâtre de France contenant la diversitez des habits selon les qualitez et conditions des personnes, and in 1629, Jardin de la Noblesse françoise, and above all Elémens de pourtraiture ou la méthode de représenter & pourtraire toutes les parties du corps humain, a veritable treatise illustrating half-figures and anatomies in landscapes that resemble this drawing in every way. Note the similarities in the bushes, the attitudes of the figures in the foreground and so on. It's not impossible that he drew his inspiration for the reliefs from the plates designed by Jean de Beins, Henri IV's military engineer, illustrating the campaigns of Marshal de Lesdiguières in the Dauphiné. He embodies the ultimate Mannerist flowering, on a par with Georges Lallemant and Pierre Brebiette, and the diversity of his work is astonishing. He appears as an ambitious painter, sensitive to the most prestigious protections of his time, and assured of unquestionable success in Paris until Vouet's return. Bibliography: E. Brugerolles, J. de Couëssin, Le dessin en France au XVIIe siècle dans les collections de L'ENSBA, Paris 2001-2002.