by Jon Lackman | 4 February 2009 | Baroque/Neoclassical, Books
We belatedly take note of Annick Lemoine’s Nicolas Régnier winning the latest book prize of the Syndicat National des Antiquaires. The Art Tribune‘s Didier Rykner writes:
… a remarkable monographic study, both erudite and pleasantly readable, which is the fruit of many long years of research and of a very subtle knowledge of the period. This publication offers many new findings on the artist’s life as well as his work. This is one of Arthéna’s best volumes, thus continuing an editorial policy which can never be praised enough …
Along with Valentin de Boulogne, Régnier was one of the main adepts of the Manfrediana Methodus, a term which designates a Caravaggism reinterpreted through the prism of Bartolomeo Manfredi’s style. Régnier quickly oriented his manner towards a pursuit of refinement and gracefulness, which Annick Lemoine calls “a poetics of seduction” or “a Caravaggism of seduction” …
Régnier’s half-brother was Michele Desubleo. The book does not question a rather strange fact: these two artists from the same family, both born in Maubeuge then living in Rome, are considered as having different nationalities, one French, the other Italian … Régnier’s activities as an art dealer and expert are also studied by Annick Lemoine with one amusing anecdote which recounts how the painter commissioned fake paintings from his son-in-law Pietro della Vecchia … Were these pieces sold as copies or were they part of a veritable counterfeiting business? Annick Lemoine does not say either way but seems to favor the second hypothesis …
Thanks to this publication Régnier definitely appears as a major 17th century artist and we feel he deserves to have an exhibition organized in his honor … Since the pioneering exhibition in 1974, the French Caravaggesque have become better known: Valentin has had a monograph devoted to him in Italian, Tournier had an exhibition in Toulouse in 2001 and the Roman Vouet is currently being exhibited at the Musée de Nantes (see article). Annick Lemoine’s book, which benefits from extensive research in Italian archives, is a superb example of the trend to rediscover this school.
