Attributed to Antoine DIEU (1662 ? - 1727) - Lot 34

Attributed to Antoine DIEU (1662 ? - 1727) Scene from the Illiad Canvas 101 x 227 cm Many missing parts to the frame While Mariane Paunet (cf. "Antoine Dieu (1662?-1727)", Cahiers du dessin français no. 20, Paris, De Bayser éditeur, 2018) has catalogued almost one hundred and eighty drawings by Antoine Dieu, the number of his paintings that have come down to us is much smaller, barely twenty or so. is much smaller, barely twenty or so. He liked to depict ancient battles and disorderly throngs of figures, inspired by the large formats of Charles Le Brun's Histoire d'Alexandre (La bataille d'Arbelles, Musée du Louvre), but even more agitated. We know of several of his paintings and drawings. It is with the Bataille entre les Romains et les Carthaginois, his reception piece for the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in March 1722 (Musée du Louvre), that our canvas shows the most affinities. It features the foreshortened or highly contoured figures, the type of horses, certain expressive heads and the range of colors. The incessant divine intervention in the course of battle and the close relationship between deities and men permeate the Homeric narrative. Heroes, warriors and Greek gods are intertwined here, notably Mercury in the center. At the top of the canvas, Helen of Troy is received into Olympus, presented by Venus. While Homer makes her the cause of the Trojan War depicted below in the Illiad, it is in the Odyssey that he writes that Proteus had foretold immortality to Menelaus and Helen.