Deutscher and Hackett

Born in Champigneulle in 1661, Desportes’ precocious talent was recognized so early that his father sent him, at the age of twelve, to Paris to work and study in the studio of Nicasius Bernaerts. Bernaerts was a respected artist, admired for his close and accurate observation of nature, and Desportes learned quickly and well, soon enjoying success as a portrait painter. In 1695, he was invited to the Polish court by King John lll, where he painted numerous portraits of the Sobieski royal family and court nobility until the King's death the following year, when Desportes returned to France. Desportes’ training in the Dutch/Flemish Baroque tradition had an excellent pedigree - Bernaerts had, in his turn, been apprenticed to Frans Snyders, a close friend and the subject of one of Sir Anthony van Dyck's most brilliant portraits in the Frick Collection, New York - and Desportes had always respected these earlier masters and the virtuosic realism of their still-life pictures of fruit and game. He made a wise and profitable decision when he decided to abandon portraiture for the less competitive and more lucrative market of hunting scenes and animal studies.

He was admitted to the French Royal Academy in 1699, and succeeded in winning the favour of firstly Louis XIV, then Louis XV, in his long and illustrious career. Appointed as Court Painter of the Royal Hunt and Kennels in 1712, he recorded many such events, illustrating also his patrons’ favourite dogs, as does this work. Earlier in 1712, he visited London, and much in vogue, he sold many significant works to English collectors excited by his imposing and - in the case of this work - dramatic still-life paintings. Many of his most important works have an English provenance, as in the case of this particularly fine example, with its characteristic spill of apples, sliced cantaloupe, grapes, peaches and pears, and an inquisitive pair of hunting dogs, intrigued spectators to a rowdy squabble between a monkey and a parrot - the last two very likely painted from examples in Versailles’ royal menagerie. Innovatively, he was one of the first artists to make landscape studies from nature for his backgrounds - again, illustrated by this work with its distant coastal scene, backed by a range of misty hills.

Desportes also worked on the decoration of several of the royal residences, designing tapestries which included the famous ‘Indies’ series, and his influence was felt throughout the rest of the eighteenth century. His work is found in major European and North American collections, from the Louvre in Paris and the Wallace Collection, London, to the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles.

P. ANTHONY PRESTON