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Christ and the Canaanite Woman
Artist:
Jean François de Troy
(French, 1679 - 1752)
Date: 1743
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
Overall: 76 1/2 x 57 1/2 in. (194.3 x 146.1 cm)
Overall, Frame: 88 x 71 3/4 in. (223.5 x 182.2 cm)
Classification: European art
Credit Line: Museum purchase
Object number: 69.34.6
Terms
- Men
- Women
- Religion
- Christianity
- New Testament
- Jesus Christ
- Blue
- White
- Green
- Brown
- Black
- Red
- Gray
- Lavender
- Late Baroque
- Early Rococo
In Collection(s)
On view
DescriptionThis oil on canvas painting depicts Jesus Christ blessing an outcast woman. Several classic, weighty figures dressed in brillant-hued fabrics fill the canvas.
Exhibition History"Paintings from the Collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.," Portland Art Museum, Portland, Oregon; Seattle Art Museum; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Minneapolis Art Institute; St. Louis City Art Museum; William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art, Kansas City; Detroit Institute of Arts; and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, March 2, 1956 - April 14, 1957. (Exhib. cat. no. 62).
"Vouet to Rigaud. French Masters of the Seventeenth Century," Finch College Museum of Art, New York, April 20 - June 18, 1967. (Exhib. cat. nos. 5-6).
"The Rococo Age," High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Oct. 5 - Dec. 31, 1983. (Exhib. cat. pp. 39-40, fig. I.7).
"French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, May 31 - Sept. 14, 1986; Birmingham Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 1986 - Jan. 18, 1987. (Exhib. cat. no. 9).
"Vouet to Rigaud. French Masters of the Seventeenth Century," Finch College Museum of Art, New York, April 20 - June 18, 1967. (Exhib. cat. nos. 5-6).
"The Rococo Age," High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Oct. 5 - Dec. 31, 1983. (Exhib. cat. pp. 39-40, fig. I.7).
"French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum," North Carolina Museum of Art, May 31 - Sept. 14, 1986; Birmingham Museum of Art, Nov. 6, 1986 - Jan. 18, 1987. (Exhib. cat. no. 9).
Label textJean-François de Troy
French, 1679-1752
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1743
Oil on canvas
In Jean-François de Troy’s paintings, devoting yourself to Christ is the pathway to redemption. In both pictures (here and far left), the busy, billowing, and brownish scenes fall away behind the unsullied colors and luminous quality of Jesus and the women bowing at his feet. The women’s bright expressions in particular draw them out of the earthly plane, showing the ecstasy of piety and faith.
Museum membership purchase 69.34.6
French, 1679-1752
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1743
Oil on canvas
In Jean-François de Troy’s paintings, devoting yourself to Christ is the pathway to redemption. In both pictures (here and far left), the busy, billowing, and brownish scenes fall away behind the unsullied colors and luminous quality of Jesus and the women bowing at his feet. The women’s bright expressions in particular draw them out of the earthly plane, showing the ecstasy of piety and faith.
Museum membership purchase 69.34.6
Published References
F. Watson. "A Note on Some Missing Works by De Troy," _Burlington Magazine_. 92. 1950: 50.
J. Baillol. "French Rococo Painting: A Notable Exhibition in Atlanta," _Apollo_. 119. 1984: 17.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _French Paintings from the Chrysler Museum_. The Chrysler Museum. 1986. Nos. 9-10. *See for further references.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture and Drawings_. The Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, VA, 1991, 71, no. 52.
Andrew Harvey, "God's Love Is Extravagant," _Venture Inward_. May/June 1999, cover illustration, 20-24, 45.
Christophe Leribault, _Jean-François de Troy_ (Paris: Arthena, 2002), 382-383.
Jeff Harrison, _Collecting with Vision: Treasures From the Chrysler Museum of Art_ (London: D. Giles Ltd., 2007), 36, fig. 29B. ISBN: 978-0-940744-72-1
Provenance
The artist, 1743-1752; the artist's estate sale, Paris, April 9, 1764; Frances Lady Ashburton; sale, Christie's, London, Dec. 16, 1949; Leger Gallery, London; Newhouse Galleries, New York, 1954; Walter P. Chrysler, Jr.; Central Picture Galleries, New York; Norfolk Museum of Arts and Sciences, 1969, Museum Membership Purchase.
Catalogue EntryJean-François de Troy
French (1679-1752)
Christ in the House of Simon, 1743
Oil on canvas, 76¾" x 57½" (195 x 146.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower edge, left of center:
_1743 DE TROY A ROME_
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.639
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1743
Oil on canvas, 76½" x 57½" (194.3 x 146.1 cm)
Signed and dated upper right:
_De Troy à Rome 1743_
Museum membership purchase, 69.34.6
Reference: Harrison, _CM_, 1986, nos. 9-10
Born into a distinguished family of painters, Jean-François de Troy was trained initially by his father François, a fashionable Parisian portraitist and director of the Académie Royale. After further study in Rome (1699-1706), he returned to Paris and was admitted to the Académie as a history painter. A prolific artist who embraced a wide range of themes, De Troy excelled at portraiture and grandiose decorative cycles of mythological and religious content. He was also famous for his tapestry designs and his small-scale genre pictures of aristocratic dalliance, his elegant _tableaux de modes_. In all of these works De Troy employed a charming, yet vigorous style that blended the delicacy of the emerging rococo with the more vibrant Baroque language of Rubens and Jacob Jordaens.
By the mid-1730s De Troy had won the patronage of Louis XV and had collaborated with François Boucher (no. 51) and Charles Natoire at Versailles. However, his fondest wish - to become _premier peintre du Roi_ (first painter to the king) - was denied him in 1736, when his old rival François Le Moyne was chosen for the post. In 1738 De Troy returned to Rome, where he served as director of the French Academy until 1751.
Painted in Rome in 1743, the ambitious biblical pendants in The Chrysler Museum typify the dramatic, grand manner of De Troy's second Italian period, the weighty, classic figure style that he distilled from Jordaens, Jean Jouvenet and the Neapolitan Baroque. In both pictures - _Christ and the Canaanite Woman_ (Matthew 15:22-28) and _Christ in the House of Simon_ (Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8) - Jesus blesses an outcast woman, demonstrating his compassion for the downtrodden victim who has, despite everything, remained faithful. The broad handling and stark monumentality of _The Canaanite Woman_ contrast with the more finely worked and opulent _House of Simon_, where the figures all but vanish beneath billowing waves of brilliant-hued fabric. The pendants remained with the artist until his death and were sold from his estate in Paris in 1764.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_. Norfolk, VA: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, 70, #52.
French (1679-1752)
Christ in the House of Simon, 1743
Oil on canvas, 76¾" x 57½" (195 x 146.1 cm)
Signed and dated lower edge, left of center:
_1743 DE TROY A ROME_
Gift of Walter P. Chrysler, Jr. 71.639
Christ and the Canaanite Woman, 1743
Oil on canvas, 76½" x 57½" (194.3 x 146.1 cm)
Signed and dated upper right:
_De Troy à Rome 1743_
Museum membership purchase, 69.34.6
Reference: Harrison, _CM_, 1986, nos. 9-10
Born into a distinguished family of painters, Jean-François de Troy was trained initially by his father François, a fashionable Parisian portraitist and director of the Académie Royale. After further study in Rome (1699-1706), he returned to Paris and was admitted to the Académie as a history painter. A prolific artist who embraced a wide range of themes, De Troy excelled at portraiture and grandiose decorative cycles of mythological and religious content. He was also famous for his tapestry designs and his small-scale genre pictures of aristocratic dalliance, his elegant _tableaux de modes_. In all of these works De Troy employed a charming, yet vigorous style that blended the delicacy of the emerging rococo with the more vibrant Baroque language of Rubens and Jacob Jordaens.
By the mid-1730s De Troy had won the patronage of Louis XV and had collaborated with François Boucher (no. 51) and Charles Natoire at Versailles. However, his fondest wish - to become _premier peintre du Roi_ (first painter to the king) - was denied him in 1736, when his old rival François Le Moyne was chosen for the post. In 1738 De Troy returned to Rome, where he served as director of the French Academy until 1751.
Painted in Rome in 1743, the ambitious biblical pendants in The Chrysler Museum typify the dramatic, grand manner of De Troy's second Italian period, the weighty, classic figure style that he distilled from Jordaens, Jean Jouvenet and the Neapolitan Baroque. In both pictures - _Christ and the Canaanite Woman_ (Matthew 15:22-28) and _Christ in the House of Simon_ (Luke 7:36-50; John 12:1-8) - Jesus blesses an outcast woman, demonstrating his compassion for the downtrodden victim who has, despite everything, remained faithful. The broad handling and stark monumentality of _The Canaanite Woman_ contrast with the more finely worked and opulent _House of Simon_, where the figures all but vanish beneath billowing waves of brilliant-hued fabric. The pendants remained with the artist until his death and were sold from his estate in Paris in 1764.
Jefferson C. Harrison. _The Chrysler Museum Handbook of the European and American Collections: Selected Paintings, Sculpture, and Drawings_. Norfolk, VA: The Chrysler Museum, 1991, 70, #52.
