fig. 2Charles Le Brun, Portrait of the SculptorNicolas Le Brun, c. 1635, oil on canvasSalzburg, Residenzgaleriehad been triumphantly processed through the streets of Paris in July 1798, it wasreturned to Rome, following the defeat of Napoleon, in January 1816 (Haskell andPenny 1981, p. 142).The elegant antique marble Hermes has been regarded with the utmostreverence ever since it was discovered in the mid sixteenth century. This isdemonstrated by the trend for artists and connoisseurs to have themselves depictedin the vicinity of the model. For example, Nicolas de Largillière’s portraits ofboth Charles Le Brun (Musée du Louvre, inv. no. 5661) and Nicolas Coustou(Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen, Berlin, inv. no. 80.1) feature a version of themodel. Similarly, in Charles Le Brun’s portrait of c. 1635 (fig. 2, Residenzgalerie,Salzburg, inv. no. 254), his father, the sculptor Nicolas Le Brun, is presented witha plaster cast of it. The reasons for this appear to have been as much pedagogicas they were aesthetic and socio-cultural, for Bernini had made the remarkablestatement to the Paris Academy in 1666 that ‘when I was in difficulties with myfirst statue, I turned to the Antinous (Hermes) as to the oracle’ (Wittkower [1958]1999, p. 21).
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