LOUIS DE BOULLOGNE THE YOUNGER (PARIS, 1654-1733) APOLLO AND DAPHNE Canvas Frameless Old restorations Apollo and Daphne, canvas, unframed, with restorations 116 x 143 CM - 45,6 x 56,2 IN. Louis de Boullogne rose through the ranks of an official career from the Grand Prix de Rome in 1673, two Mays de Notre-Dame in 1685 and 1695, to become director of the Académie in 1722 and Premier Peintre du roi three years later. He worked on most of the major projects under Louis XIV: the petits appartements at Versailles, Marly, Meudon, the Invalides and the chapel at Versailles. But our painting, above all, evokes the pleasant mythological decorations of the Marble Trianon (the Grand Trianon), in which Louis de Boullogne participated around 1700, with his brother Bon Boullogne, Antoine Coypel, Jean Jouvenet, Charles de la Fosse, paintings which are still in place. The subject, taken from Ovid's "Metamorphoses", is treated in a dynamic manner: Apollo, hit by Cupid's arrow, pursues the nymph Daphne, who has taken a vow of virginity. She begs her father, the river god Peneus, to free her. He transformed her into a laurel tree. Our artist was of course familiar with the painting of this same mythological episode, painted in 1681 by Carlo Maratta for Louis XIV (Brussels, Musée des Beaux-Arts). Four preparatory drawings exist, the closest being the one in the Musée de Grenoble, whose composition differs only in a few variations around the periphery of the central group of four figures, which remains identical. At the top, Cupid moves from left to right, and the child next to the nymph in the drawing on the left is moved towards the centre. Finally, in the background, two nymphs on the right have been replaced by a river god. The other three drawings, where the image is the other way round, are in the Louvre and in private collections. Related works Drawing in the Musée de Grenoble, see "L'idée et la ligne. Dessins français du musée de Grenoble", Paris, Somogy éditions d'art, 2011, pp.78-79, n° 35. There are other known studies, one of which went on sale in 1990 (see note 3: Galerie Patrick Perrin, cat. Dessins de maîtres. IV. De Callot à Tiepolo, Paris, 1990, no. 7, then NY, Christie's 10 January 1990). This study is reproduced on p. 78 of the catalogue L'idée et la ligne, and remains, through the arrangement of the figures and the direction of Apollo and Daphne's course, the closest to the painted composition. Guillaume Kazerouni, the author of the notice, mentions in note 5 p. 78 the appearance at public sale of a painted version of Apollo and Daphne (H/T.58; L.69), sale Marseille, Leclere, 19 June 2010, lot N° 8 (attributed to Bon de Boullogne). Its "insufficient quality" leads the author to believe that it is an interpretation of a lost original by Louis de Boullogne.