(Nancy 1575–1636 Paris)
Georges prompt à la soupe (man eating lentils),
oil on canvas, 120 x 91 cm, framed

Provenance:
sale, Ader-Picard-Tajan, Paris, 25 June 1991, lot 40 (as Georges Lallemant);
where acquired by the present owner

Literature:
J. Thuillier (ed.), L’art en Lorraine au temps de Jacques Callot, exhibition catalogue, Paris 1992, pp. 270-271, mentioned under no. 85 (as ‘réplique’)

The painting represents a man in elegant clothes seen in three-quarter length in the foreground, facing outwards towards the spectator, while eating a bowl of lentils. Behind him, is a young woman with her ladle still raised after having served him. Opposite her is a youth who also seems to be addressing the observer, while pointing to the lentils which are the centre of this narrative. The episode unfolds in a sparsely furnished tavern, or in a simple home, thus the French artist has focused all his attention on the depiction of the figures who crowd the setting, which is itself supplied with only minimal details: the bottle of wine and a pheasant resting on the edge of the table.

The painting, which is of excellent quality, can be ascribed to the workshop of Georges Lallemant;
it replicates a version of the same subject conserved in the National Museum, Warsaw (inv. no. M.Ob.637) datable to the first decade of the seventeenth century. The drawing for this composition by the French painter, must certainly have been available to members of his atelier, and an autograph sheet conserved in the Musée des Beaux-Art, Rouen (inv. no. 975.4.637), appears to depict the principal figure, though with an expression that differs from that in the painting. Such drawings must have not only served for the production of studio replicas, but also for translation into print, as witnessed by an engraving by Pierre Daret (Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, inv. no. 67.539.194) dating to some twenty years later, thus also underscoring the great appeal of such subjects at the time.

The iconography of this painting, which follows in the wake of similar picturesque genre scenes by Dutch and Flemish artists, belongs to a type that was widely diffused in France at the start of the seventeenth century. Moreover, during the reign of Henry IV, a specifically French genre of satirical writing emerged that almost certainly inspired painters to make pictures such as the present one, with strongly moralising and provocative meanings.

Lallemant was born in Nancy circa 1575, there are no records concerning his early training, but it may be speculated that he was apprenticed to Jacques Bellange. In 1601 he moved to Paris where he directed an important studio, from which, among his pupils, emerged painters of the calibre of Philippe de Champaigne, Laurent de la Hyre and Nicolas Poussin. His style combines Flemish elements with components deriving from Italian painting of the latter half of the sixteenth century. His first known work depicts the Mayor and officials of Paris (Musée Carnevalet, inv. no. P626). He was invested with the title of Official Painter to the King in 1626.