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| Jean-François de Troy Diana Bathing 1727 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy |
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| François Le Moyne Continence of Scipio 1727 oil on canvas Musée des Beaux-Arts de Nancy |
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| Charles-Antoine Coypel Perseus and Andromeda 1727 oil on canvas Musée du Louvre |
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| Pierre-Jacques Cazes Triumph of Venus 1727 oil on canvas Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham |
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| Noël-Nicolas Coypel Abduction of Europa 1727 oil on canvas Philadelphia Museum of Art |
"The competition took place in 1727, but under different auspices. Twelve painters each produced a history painting. The duc d'Antin, having lost the title of surintendant des bâtiments granted to him by the regent, had recovered the title that he had held under Louis XIV, again becoming directeur général des bâtiments: he seemed deeply embarrassed during the exhibition of 1727, suggesting it be prolonged and asking the opinions of every single academician before sharing the prize between two of his protégés, Jean François de Troy and François Le Moyne. He arranged for a third painting, by Charles-Antoine Coypel, to be bought by the king. According to Valory, the competition introduced "disharmony among the artists of the Académie." It is a subject much discussed in eighteenth-century writings on painting. Several authors observed that the paintings by Pierre-Jacques Cazes and Noël-Nicolas Coypel were superior to the prizewinning works."
"The competition was the first of this kind organized in France for painting, and the month-long exhibition in the Galerie d'Apollon of the competition entries engendered real interest in the public. The fact that many people disagreed with the choice of prizewinners is of limited importance. As Cochin wrote in 1769: These marks of preference were not greeted with universal approval. However, the artists whom they angered benefited nonetheless, in that the excellent works that they had produced, by gaining a share of the public's esteem, more solidly established the reputation that they enjoyed. The public was invited not only to see but also to judge. There had been a kind of implicit competition in the 1680s, but it had been confined to court circles, and the supreme judge was still the king. . . . But in 1727 there was no supreme judge, and the duc d'Antin's choice was widely contested. It seems likely that the success of the Salons after 1737 was partly the result of the verdict implicitly asked of the public in 1727."
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| François Le Moyne Apotheosis of Hercules 1731-36 oil on canvas (installed as a ceiling) Salon d'Hercule, Château de Versailles |
"After the death of Antoine Coypel [in 1722] it no longer seemed essential to develop a discourse on painting and sculpture, especially since the comparison between painting and poetry was no longer much appreciated in a society where ornamental values reigned supreme, even at court. The vicissitudes endured by François Le Moyne in painting the ceiling of the Salon d'Hercule testify to this new aesthetic. If we are to believe Donat Nonnotte, a former pupil of Le Moyne's, whose lecture is corroborated by Le Moyne's surviving designs: His first plan was to represent, on the ceiling of this magnificent salon, the Glory of the French monarchy, established and supported by the handsome actions of our greatest kings. The middle part was to be occupied by Clovis, Charlemagne, Saint Louis, and Henri le Grand in the dwelling place of the immortals. The four sides, in the form of fans, were to represent the loftiest deed of these princes, which the entire nation will always remember with admiration, recognition, and respect. I saw this plan, which Monsieur Le Moyne greatly favored. Whether because the novelty of painting a single piece over so great an area proved more pleasing or because, for reasons particular to the Surintendant, the subject from fable was more to his taste, he chose the apotheosis of Hercules, of which the true allegorical sense is, incontrovertibly, heroic Virtue recompensed. The surintendant, or rather directeur, the duc d'Antin is, naturally, mentioned as having modified the project – he was perhaps embarrassed by the absence of Louis XIV – but artistic criteria must also have prevailed in the decoration of this salon in the Grands Appartements. Le Moyne's painting seemed crushingly superior to the complex allegories of Le Brun."
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"The death of the duc d'Antin in November 1736 led to a six-month period of uncertainty as the Académie waited to see what status would be bestowed on François Le Moyne, who had been appointed premier peintre du roi on 29 September. D'Antin had given permission for the director of the Académie, Guillaume Coustou the Elder, to remain in that post until the end of his term of office in July, and Le Moyne had agreed not to set foot in the Académie until that date. But, incited by one of his friends, Donat Nonnotte tells us, Le Moyne took several ill-considered steps: At a time when his imagination was disordered, he said publicly that little had been done for him if he was not permitted to enjoy all the advantages that Monsieur Le Brun had enjoyed in the same situation. . . . Le Moyne's tactlessness – it was in fact an early symptom of his madness – might well have provoked retaliatory acts after the death of his protector; those who had been his rivals since the competition of 1727 remained hostile. . . . Monsieur de Troy, still somewhat resentful of the disadvantage that he believed himself to have incurred relative to his rival, sought to recover prestige by making use of a facility that his competitor did not possess. Monsieur Le Moyne took a very long time to execute his works, and Monsieur de Troy was remarkably swift; as a consequence of this particular ability, the former proposed to the court that he should make paintings suitable for execution by the Gobelins manufactory; this is the circumstance to which we owe the beautiful sequence on the story of Esther, which would be enough in itself to ensure a considerable reputation."
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| Anonymous craft-workers after Jean-François de Troy Toilette of Esther ca. 1825 block-printed wall-covering (replica of Gobelins tapestry cartoon) Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
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| Anonymous craft-workers after Jean-François de Troy Crowning of Esther ca. 1825 block-printed wall-covering (replica of Gobelins tapestry cartoon) Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum |
"It was not so much Le Moyne as the other Académie painters who suffered the consequences of de Troy's action. . . . No academician had any say in the distribution of these commissions, an element that may have contributed to the suicide of François Le Moyne in June 1737; he would have liked to wield influence on the scale of that exercised by Le Brun and Pierre Mignard."
"His suicide marks a tragic endpoint to the competition of 1727 and left significant traces in the history of French painting. The three contemporary lives of Le Moyne (two of which, by the comte de Caylus and Donat Nonnotte, were read aloud as lectures at the Académie) attempt to clear the institution of any responsibility by attributing the suicide to a persecution complex. Caylus goes further, explaining that "his misfortune must inevitably touch us; but, in relation to art, I may say sincerely and with strong proof that his talent was worn out and he would never again have produced anything after the Salon d'Hercule." In all of these texts, compassion is shown for Le Moyne but no responsibility is acknowledged for his suicide. Indeed, it is argued that he had been showing signs of instability since the death of his wife four years earlier. These lives probably constitute a response to rumors that were blaming, if not the Académie as such, at least a cabal comprising a number of its officers for the tragic death of a man reputed to be the greatest French painter of his time."
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| François Le Moyne Time saving Truth from Falsehood and Envy 1737 oil on canvas (said to have been completed the day before Le Moyne's suicide) Wallace Collection, London |
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| François Le Moyne Diana and Callisto 1723 oil on canvas Los Angeles County Museum of Art |
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| François Le Moyne Adam and Eve before the Fall before 1737 oil on copper private collection |
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| François Le Moyne Latona and the Peasants of Lycia 1721 oil on canvas Portland Art Museum (Oregon) |
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| François Le Moyne Narcissus 1728 oil on canvas Kunsthalle, Hamburg |
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| François Le Moyne Woman Bathing 1724 oil on canvas Dallas Museum of Art |
– texts and quoted passages from The Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture: The Birth of the French School, 1648-1793 by Christian Michel, published in France in 2012, translated by Chris Miller and published by Getty Research Institute in 2018