The youngest child of the landscape painter Pierre Patel, known as Patel the Elder (1605–1676), and of Marguerite Verdier, Pierre-Antoine Patel, known as Patel the Younger, followed in the footsteps of both his father and his elder brother, Jacques, whose life was tragically cut short when he was killed in a duel. He trained in the family workshop, first assisting and later working alongside his father. The year following the latter’s death, Pierre-Antoine, then twenty-nine years old, was admitted as a master painter to the Académie de Saint-Luc, successor to the former Parisian guild of painters and sculptors. Unlike his father, who moved within the circles of Simon Vouet and Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, Pierre-Antoine does not appear to have cultivated close relationships with prominent artists likely to exert a significant influence upon either his art or his career. Nevertheless, a notarial document dated 1680 describes him as “maître peintre et peintre ordinaire du Roy” (“Master Painter and Ordinary Painter to the King”), suggesting that he may at that time have worked for Louis XIV.
Pierre-Antoine Patel’s most celebrated achievement is the series The Twelve Months of the Year, executed in 1699 and now dispersed among public and private collections. His other paintings, varying from modest to monumental in scale, sometimes take the form of pendants or of less ambitious cycles devoted to the Seasons, the Elements, or the Times of Day. His oeuvre was intended for a loyal and discerning clientele of connoisseurs, predominantly Parisian, who cherished the memory of the clear artistry of Patel the Elder and delighted in the poetic compositions of Patel the Younger. Although Pierre-Antoine continued, in his father’s wake, to cultivate the same type of Mediterranean landscape populated by imposing antique ruins and a handful of diminutive figures, his style is nevertheless clearly distinct from that of his predecessor.
Fond of depicting atmospheric effects and expansive skies, Pierre-Antoine never allows his foliage or architectural forms to rise to the upper edge of the canvas. His distant vistas unfold in successive planes framed by trees with twisted trunks. The foreground acquires greater depth, bristling with rugged rocks and untamed vegetation. The overall rhythm becomes restless, swirling, almost polyphonic, while details, and architecture in particular, dissolve into subtle effects of light and shadow. Patel the Younger manipulates the illumination of the scene to heighten its unreal quality and evoke a distinctly imagined vision. In this way, he guides the viewer’s gaze between the bluish mountains on the horizon, the gestures of the figures, and the crumbling walls of ancient temples.
The present work offers an exemplary illustration of Patel the Younger’s compositional practice, characterised by the juxtaposition of several iconographic registers within a single image. In the foreground, the figures of Balaam and the Angel (from the Book of Numbers), though rendered with meticulous care, appear diminutive in relation to the vast ruins occupying the left-hand side of the composition. This temple evokes the religious architecture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, particularly that of Jesuit churches, while displaying on its central pediment a surprising sculpture of Diana the Huntress. Below unfolds the central episode: Balaam, sent to curse the people of Israel, is halted on his journey by the angel dispatched by God. Invisible to the prophet yet perceived by his donkey, the angel reminds Balaam that he may act only in accordance with the divine will. By bringing together within a single imaginary setting such precise references—a singular biblical episode, architecture inspired by Christian models, and sculptural ornament derived from classical mythology—Patel reveals an erudite culture set within an idealised vision of the Roman Campagna. The composition rests upon a striking contrast between the grandeur of the edifice, partially overrun by luxuriant vegetation, and the opening to the right onto a tranquil horizon. This asymmetrical organisation of space, characteristic of the artist, enhances the sense of depth and endows the scene with a contemplative dimension.
We are grateful to Madame Natalie Coural for confirming the authenticity of our work following an examination de visu.
