1984.598: Saint Helen

Identification and Creation

Object Number

1984.598

People

Claude Vignon, French (Tours 1593 - 1670 Paris)

Title

Saint Helen

Other Titles

Original Language Title: Sainte Helene

Classification

Drawings

Work Type

drawing

Date

c. 1650

Culture

French

Persistent Link

https://hvrd.art/o/294580

Physical Descriptions

Medium

Brown ink, red chalk, and brown and red-chalk wash on off-white antique laid paper, framing lines in brown ink

Dimensions

32.5 x 21.4 cm (12 13/16 x 8 7/16 in.)

Inscriptions and Marks

• collector's mark: lower left, black ink: Germain Seligman (L.3863)
• inscription: lower left, brown ink: Vignon int f. ["t" in superscript]
• inscription: verso, lower center, graphite: St. Helen
• watermark:
  : Cordon (collar of the Order of St. Michael) and emblem of the Saint-Esprit
• inscription: verso, lower right, graphite: 103.1978

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History

Germain Seligman, New York (his mark, L.3863, lower left, black ink); Seiden and de Cuevas, Inc., New York; Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, The Melvin R. Seiden Fund and Louise Haskell Daly Fund, 1984.598

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line

Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, The Melvin R. Seiden Fund and Louise Haskell Daly Fund

Accession Year

1984

Object Number

1984.598

Division

European and American Art

Contact

am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu

Permissions

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Publication History

• Pierre Rosenberg, "Some Drawings by Claude Vignon", Master Drawings, Master Drawings Association (New York, 1966), vol. 4, no. 3, Autumn, pp. 289-93, pp. 290, 293-n.17
• Pierre Rosenberg, French Master Drawings of the 17th & 18th Centuries in North American Collections / Dessins français du 17ème & du 18ème siècles des collections américaines, exh. cat., Secker & Warburg (London, 1972-1973), cat. no. 145, pp. 97, 220-21
• Erich Schleier, "La Vision de Léon Ier: un dessin inconnu de Claude Vignon", La Revue du Louvre et des Musees de France, Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1973), vol. 23, no. 6, pp. 349-54
• Ebria Feinblatt, Old Master Drawings from American Collections, exh. cat., Los Angeles County Museum of Art/Allanheld & Schram (Los Angeles, 1976), cat. no. 142, p. 130
• John Richardson, ed., The Collection of Germain Seligman: Paintings, Drawings and Works of Art, E. V. Thaw & Co., Artemis S.A., and David Carritt Ltd. (New York, Luxembourg, and London, 1979), cat. no. 82, n.p.
• Anonymous, "La Chronique des Arts", Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Presses Universitaires de France (Paris, 1980), ser. 6, vol. 95, May-June, p. 23
• Hilliard T. Goldfarb, From Fontainebleau to the Louvre: French Drawing from the Seventeenth-Century, exh. cat., Cleveland Museum of Art/Indiana University Press (Cleveland, 1989), cat. no. 66 pp. 135-37
• Old Master Drawings, auct. cat., Sotheby's Publications (New York, 1989), under cat. no. 203, p. 110
• Paola Pacht Bassani, Claude Vignon (1593-1670), Arthena (Paris, 1992), cat. no. 455, pp. 448-49, 455
• Eckhart Knab and Heinz Widauer, Die Zeichnungen der Französichen Schule von Clouet bis Le Brun, Albertina (Vienna, 1993), p. 288
• Véronique Meyer, "Bosse, Rousselet, et Vignon", ed. Claude Mignot, Paola Pacht Bassani, and Sylvain Kerspern, Klincksieck (Paris, 1998), pp. 194, 205
• Emmanuelle Brugerolles and David Guillet, ed., Poussin, Claude, and Their World: Seventeenth-Century French Drawings from the École des Beaux-Arts, exh. cat., Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux-Arts and The Frick Collection (Paris and New York, 2001-2002), under cat. no. 4, n. 28
• Véronique Meyer, L'œuvre gravé de Gilles Rousselet: graveur parisien du XVIIe siècle, Commission des Travaux Historiques de la Ville de Paris (Paris, 2004), p. 164
• Suzanne Folds McCullagh, "Claude Vignon", In Arte Venustas: Studies on Drawings in Honour of Teréz Gerszi: Presented on Her Eightieth Birthday, ed. Andrea Czére, Szépművészeti Muzeum (Budapest, 2007)
• Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Dreams & Echoes: Drawings and Sculpture in the David and Celia Hilliard Collection, exh. cat., ed. Suzanne Folds McCullagh and Melissa L. Gustin, The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago, 2013)
• Louis-Antoine Prat, Le dessin français au XVIIe siècle, Somogy Éditions d'Art (Paris, 2013), pp. 337, 648
• Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Seventeenth-Century European Drawings in Midwestern Collections: The Age of Bernini, Rembrandt, and Poussin, ed. Shelley Perlove and George S. Keyes, University of Notre Dame Press (Notre Dame, 2015), p. 276
• Alvin L. Clark, Jr. and Edouard Kopp, French Drawings from the Age of Claude, Poussin, Watteau, and Fragonard: Highlights from the Collection of the Harvard Art Museums, Harvard Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 2022), cat. no. 8, repr., p. 80

Exhibition History

• French Master Drawings of the 17th & 18th Centuries in North American Collections, Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto, 09/02/1972 - 10/15/1972; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 11/03/1972 - 12/17/1972; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 01/12/1973 - 03/11/1973; New York Cultural Center, New York, 04/04/1973 - 05/13/1973
• Old Master Drawings from American Collections, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, 04/29/1976 - 06/13/1976
• From Fontainebleau to the Louvre: French Drawings from the 17th Century, Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, 12/13/1989 - 01/28/1990; Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 02/24/1990 - 04/08/1990; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, 05/06/1990 - 06/17/1990
• Collecting for Harvard: Works Acquired through the Generosity of Melvin R. Seiden, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 07/03/1993 - 08/15/1993

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