(Paris 1651–1730)
Mercury and Argus,
oil on canvas, 74.5 x 98.5 cm, framed

We are grateful to Alastair Laing for suggesting the attribution to François Verdier (Paris 1651–1730) on the basis of a photograph. He believes the present picture to be an autograph variant of a painting by François Verdier in the Grand Trianon, Versailles (see fig. 1).

François Verdier painted a set of paintings of the story of Juno, Mercury, and Argus for the Grand Trianon, commissioned by Louis XIV in 1688. Compared to the present composition, the painting in the Trianon is essentially of the same idea, but Mercury and Argus and the cow are all in different poses, Mercury holds his flute and sword in different hands, and a couple of goats have been added to the composition. Verdier did repeat subjects of his paintings and the present work was presumably made as a cabinet picture for a collector, rather than – as the original was – as something such as an overdoor.

The son of a court clockmaker, the painter and draughtsman François Verdier, studied at the distinguished Académie Royale where his talent was recognised – winning prizes for drawing in 1668 and again in 1671. In 1678 he became a member of the Académie and in the following year, Verdier embarked for Rome to continue his training at the Académie de France in Rome where he was to remain until 1680.

In the years following his return to Paris he worked mainly on official commissions and under the guidance of Charles Le Brun, whose niece he married in 1685. He assisted Le Brun in the decoration of the Galerie d’Apollon at the Louvre and painted 14 decorative mythologies (1688–98) for the Grand Trianon, his most important group of works.

Although otherwise his work is heavily dependent on Le Brun, Verdier’s paintings are particularly distinctive in their expressive use of colour and the extreme classicism of their forms. In 1684 Verdier had been appointed a professor at the Académie, a position he held until 1699.