WORKSHOP OF CLAUDE AUDRAN, DESIGNS FOR LES DOUZE MOIS GROTESQUES, EARLY 18TH CENTURY

These superb painted panels are cartoons for the celebrated tapestry series created at the Royal Gobelins workshops of the Twelve Months, known as ‘Les Douze Mois Grotesques’.
These panels, now mounted as a screen, represent from left to right August, with the zodiac sign Virgo and the Goddess of Plenty Ceres above dragons and harvesting implements; October, with the zodiac sign Scorpio and the Goddess of Wisdom and War Minerva above a masked monkey at an embroidery table and November, with Sagittarius and Diana the Goddess of the Hunt above two confronting dogs.
The series was designed by the court artist Claude Audran le Jeune (d. 1734) in 1708 and 1709 while he was executing the decoration of the apartments of the Dauphin, later King Louis XV, at the château de Meudon. An entry in the Comptes des Bâtiments indicates the creation of the series:
Année 1709. Maison Royales. - Peinture: à Claude Audran, autre peintre, pour un tableau représentant un berceau où des singes sont à table; posé à Marly en 1709, 300 livres
A luy pour peintures faites aux Gobelins en 1708 et 1709, pour le nouveau batiment de Monseigneur à Meudon
495 livres
It was during the same period that the young Antoine Watteau (d. 1721), then just 23 or 24 years old, worked under Audran. It is probable that he collaborated on this project, while it was Alexandre-François Desportes (d. 1743) who supplied the animal figures. Rather unusually, the original designs do not appear to have remained at Gobelins thereafter as they are not recorded in the detailed inventory taken at the workshop in 1736.
The editio princeps woven for the Dauphin, which contained gold and silver-thread, was divided into three panels, one with six joined panels and the other two with three joined panels each. That suite is today in the Mobilier National in Paris, with the exception of one of the smaller panels depicting October, November and December that was already noted missing in 1830.
The original series represents the Grand Dauphin, the future Louis XV, adopting his 'Apollo' role as patron and Lord of the Arts of France in the furnishing of his apartments at the château de Meudon. The Sun deity Apollo, as leader of Mt. Parnassus' Muses of Artistic Inspiration, presides over these Olympic deities symbolising the Months of the Year. Richly filigreed and coloured after the antique fashion associated with the Parnassus grotto, they are named as the 'Douze Mois Grotesques par Bandes'. Their richly flowered and filated pilasters or 'paned' tablets display the deities within triumphal baldequins that are labelled by Zodiac medallions and accompanied by emblematic badges and symbols. They are designed in a graceful Roman form that evolved from the Louis Quatorze 'antique' style associated with the 'Oeuvres' of Jean Bérain (d.1711) as 'Dessinateur de la Chambre et du Cabinet du Roi'. This new fashion was introduced by Audran , whose decorative ornament was already described in 1693 as surpassing that of Bérain as being, 'plus exquis et plus svelte'.
Audran introduced his popular 'singeries' in 1709 at the château de Marly and composed them at the same time as this exuberant tapestry series, which demonstrate his role as Berain's true successor. It was in 1699, while serving as a designer at the Gobelins, that Audran received the commission from Mansart for the 'Portières des Dieux' series, which were to incorporate figures by Louis de Boulogne. Then in 1704 he received a court appointment at the Palais de Luxembourg and was able to establish tapestry works there.
Six other panels from the same set were sold anonymously, Sotheby’s, New York, 18 November 2010, lot 235 ($230,500).