Antoine Monnoyer was the son, pupil and assistant of his famous father, Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer. Thanks to his own international career he succesfully spread his father’s style over many parts of Europe.

 

Antoine loved combining popular floral elements in new creations. It is therefore not surprising that parts of our flower still life appear in a fully signed worked by him, published in the year 2000 by Claudia Salvi.

 

 

French painter

Paris 1677 – 1745 Saint-Germain-en-Laye

 

Flower still life painter.

 

Son and pupil of Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer (Lille 1636 – 1699 London), who was the most important French (in fact Franco-Flemish) painter of the second half of the 17th century. Jean-Baptiste was born in Lille, then still a Flemish town (it was taken by the troops of the French King, Louis XIV in 1667), studied painting in Antwerp, moved to Paris already in 1655,  where he had a succesful career as one of the assistants of Charles Le Brun decorating several royal houses. Around 1685 he moved to London, where he had a fulgurating success until his death in 1699. 

 

Antoine must have moved with his father to London, assisting him in the decoration of several palaces and grand houses. Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer rarely signed or dated his paintings, he had an important number of assistants and an even larger group of followers and copiists.

Antoine is also known to have used his father’s signatures “Baptiste” and “Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer”. Therefore making attributions to both the Monnoyers is very difficult. In England, and even in France Antoine was known as “Young Baptist”. Our painting is monogrammed “IB” for Jean-Baptiste.

 

In 1701 started the terrible War of the Spanish Succession (1701 – 1714), which was fought all over Europe, by most European nations. It followed the childless death of Charles II of Spain. Both the French Bourbons and the Austrian Habsburgs claimed the throne. Many European states were afraid that a unified France and Spain would make Louis XIV too powerful. The War opposed France, Spain and Bavaria against Austria, the Dutch Republic, Great Britain, Prussia, Savoy and Portugal. The War lasted until 1714. During and after wartime commands for decorating palaces and grand houses became rare, so Antoine Monnoyer was obliged to travel a lot in order to stay at work: he is known to have worked in England (especially between 1714 and 1729), France, Italy, Portugal, Denmark and Sweden.

 

One may say that while Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer was very successful, it was his son Antoine who raised his father’s influence to a next level. And although he was for sure strongly influenced by his father, Antoine added some personal characteristics to the “label” Monnoyer: he introduced new varieties of flowers and a pale blue, lavender colour.

 

 

Our painting is monogrammed “I B” bottom left. Original or not, it must refer to Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer. Claudia Salvi already explained in 2000 in her book about 17th century French still life painting that adding father Monnoyer’s signature or monogram was a common practise of the (Antoine) Monnoyer workshop.

 

Our painting stands close to a fully signed work of Antoine Monnoyer published by Claudia Salvi: 2000, P. 207. This should not be a surprise as Antoine Monnoyer is known to have regularly used and combined different parts of compositions.

 

 

Because it is a nice example of a flower still life dating from the first half of the 18th century, set in a tasteful, sculpted wooden frame dating from the second half of the 19th century.