Singerie: The Fishermen
Christophe Huet·c. 1739
Historical Context
The Fishermen panel from Huet's Singerie suite continues the mock-genre conceit with monkeys posed at a riverbank in the manner of Dutch genre fishing scenes. Where seventeenth-century Dutch masters treated fishermen with earnest dignity, Huet transforms the subject into a vehicle for Rococo playfulness, the apes sporting miniature hats and wielding rods with exaggerated concentration. The humor operates on two levels: a parody of rustic genre painting and a gentle jest at human pretensions to leisure. Executed around 1739, these panels belong to a period of peak Rococo confidence in French decorative art, shortly before Enlightenment taste began to demand a more restrained classicism. The series demonstrates Huet's command of both figure painting and ornamental design.
Technical Analysis
The brushwork is lively and sketchlike, appropriate for decorative panels meant to be read at a distance. Cool greens and silvery blues dominate, evoking a watery atmosphere. Figures are anatomically schematic but expressively gestured, the comedy conveyed through posture rather than facial detail.
Provenance
Commissioned by François Jules Duvaucel [1672-1739] for a salon in the Château de La Norville, France; remained in the château through successive owners until sometime between 1901 and 1906; (Fauché, Paris), by 1907;[1] purchased 1922 through (André Carlhian, Paris) by Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice [1875-1956] and his wife, Eleanor Elkins Widener Rice [1861-1937], for the dining room of their Fifth Avenue manion, New York;[2] by inheritance 1956 to Mrs. Rice's children, George D. Widener, Jr. [1889-1971] and Eleanor Widener Dixon [1891-1966, Mrs. Fitz Eugene Dixon]; gift 1957 to NGA. [1] The history of the decoration of the Château de La Norville is thoroughly described by Bruno Pons, _Grands décors français, 1650-1800: reconstitués en Angleterre, aux Etats-Unis, en Amérique du Sud et en France_, Dijon, 1995: 221-426. See also Abbé A.E. Genty, _Histoire de la Norville et de sa seigneurie_, Brussels and Geneva, 1885: 112-129. [2] Mrs. Rice was born Eleonor Elkins in Philadelphia. Her first husband was George Dunton Widener, who perished with their elder son, Harry, in the sinking of the _Titanic_ in 1912. She married Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice in 1915. Her two other children with Widener inherited the New York residence after Dr. Rice's death. Records of the Carlhian firm are in the Special Collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, accession no. 930092. Copies of documents referring to the wall paneling are in the NGA curatorial files; see in particular the letter of 6 July 1923, from André Carlhian to Mrs. Rice, in which he tells her that "the Pineau boiserie which you bought from Fauché comes from the Chateau de la Norville, near Arpajon - about 20 miles from Paris." Both the six Huet paintings (NGA 1957.7.1-6) and the paneling (_boiserie_) by Pineau were given to the National Gallery of Art; the latter is NGA 1957.7.7.
