EUSTACHE LE SEUR

Meakness (1650)

Fine Art Giclée Print

He was born in Paris, where he spent his entire life. His father, Cathelin Le Sueur, a turner and sculptor in wood, placed him with Vouet, in whose studio he rapidly distinguished himself.

Admitted at an early age into the guild of master-painters, he left them to take part in establishing the French Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1648 and was elected as one of the original twelve elders in charge of its running.

According to the Encyclopaedia Britannica Eleventh Edition, it was considered that Le Sueur’s work lent itself readily to the engraver’s art, as he had a delicate perception of varied shades of grave and elevated sentiment, and possessed the power to render them. His graceful facility in composition was always restrained by a very fine taste, but his works often fail to please completely, because, producing so much, he had too frequent recourse to conventional types, and partly because he rarely saw colour except with the cold and clayey quality proper to the school of Vouet; yet his St Paul at Ephesus and one or two other works show that he was not naturally deficient in this sense, and whenever we get direct reference to nature—as in the monks of the St Bruno series—we recognise his admirable power to read and render physiognomy of varied and serious type.

In the years 1644-45, following a period of training and collaboration with Simon Vouet, Eustache Le Sueur established himself as an independent master, receiving important ecclesiastical commissions and also decorating the hôtels, or townhouses, of wealthy Parisians, including the Hôtel Lambert. For the chapel in the Paris townhouses of Guillaume Brissonnet, Le Sueur painted the eight Beatitudes, among them the personification of Meekness, as well as an altarpiece of the Annunciation, monochrome scenes of the life of the Virgin, and a ceiling depicting the Assumption of the Virgin. The Beatitudes, with their patterned gold ground, lined the lower story of this elegant ensemble. Only the Annunciation altarpiece and two of the Beatitudes survive. Here the personification of Meekness, appropriately accompanied by a lamb, embodies Christ’s saying in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

This print has been republished using archival papers and a 12 colour archival ink process.