Poppy Harvey-Jones
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Lot 47
Joseph Parrocel(Brignoles 1646-1704 Paris)A cavalry skirmish with Louis XIV before the siege of Besançon, 1674
4 December 2013, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£8,000 - £12,000
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Joseph Parrocel (Brignoles 1646-1704 Paris)
A cavalry skirmish with Louis XIV before the siege of Besançon, 1674
oil on canvas
79 x 114cm (31 1/8 x 44 7/8in).
oil on canvas
79 x 114cm (31 1/8 x 44 7/8in).
Footnotes
PROVENANCE
Sale, Sotheby's, Paris, 27 June 2002, lot 16, where purchased by the present owners
LITERATURE
J. Delaplanche, Joseph Parrocel 1646-1704, Paris, 2006, cat. no. P32, p. 184, col. ill. p. 19
Delaplanche suggests a date, on a stylistic basis, of between 1680 and 1684 for the present painting. However, the young age of king Louis and the fact that he has a moustache, would suggest a much earlier dating for the battle depicted. In the present work, Parrocel has been typically vague in the exact topography of the landscape but the city lying at the foot of a large rocky mountain is recognisable as the town of Besançon.
At the end of April 1674, French forces under the Marquis de Vauban set up camp outside the city of Besançon as part of Louis XIV's attempt to annexe the region of Franche-Comté, then under Spanish rule. After weeks of constant bombardment, the city capitulated on 15 May and the citadel a week later.
In his entry for A cavalry skirmish with Louis XIV before the siege of Besançon, Delaplanche describes it as 'magnifique' and he believes it to be 'l'un des plus beaux tableaux et des plus importants de Parrocel à cette date' (see J. Delaplanche, Joseph Parrocel 1646-1704, Paris, 2006, cat. no. P32, p. 184).