Pierre Puget A Portrait of the Warship 'Louis Royal', seen from Stern and Starboard Pen and brown ink and grey and brown wash on vellum PROVENANCE This drawing is one of Puget's finest representations of French warships. The rendering of ships, marine views and coastal scenes on fine vellum was one of the artist's favourite activities when he was director of the Atelier de Sculpture at the royal navy arsenal of Toulon from 1668 to1678. These drawings ensured Puget a glorious reputation during the 18th century, perhaps even to a greater extent than his sculptures. There is a pendant drawing to the Louis Royal, viewed from the stern and port side, in the Albertina Museum, Vienna. The lively, carved figures on the stern elevation are the same in both sheets, except the upper register, where Mars and Bellona are represented in the London version, while in the Vienna version these show goddesses of Victory and Glory. These minor differences can be explained by the continuous replacement of the worn-out carvings on the ship with new ones. The present drawing may have been done after the first exchange of figures, in 1671. The sheet illustrated here also differs in other respects from that in the Albertina. It shows the ship at a different moment, not sailing, but anchored. The sails are furled, the rigging is at rest. In contrast, the background in our drawing adds a dramatic element to the composition. Behind the masts and rigging, a steep coast is depicted, with overhanging rocks, quite different from the shoreline near Toulon, although found in other Puget drawings. It brings to mind the rocky coasts at Menton, or La Ciotat to the east, towards Italy. It may perhaps owe more to Puget's imaginary power than strict topography. In spite of the inscription, the ship does not represent the Monarch, but the Louis Royal. This capital ship was under construction in 1667 and 1668 - the Monarch in 1668 and 1669. The latter was partly to be decorated with carved wooden figures removed from the former. Francois Girardon mainly designed the sculptural decoration of the Louis Royal, Puget that of the Monarch. Both artists were involved in the process, and there was much confusion over leadership between the two, a struggle that cannot be retraced here. The result was an uneasy co-operation, of which this drawing is one of the results. The inscription which names our drawing as Le Grand Monarch owes its mis-apprehension to the fact that it was the only ship entirely decorated according to Puget's design. However, there survives an exact and contemporary description of Louis Royal which leaves no doubt as to the correctness of our identification. The Monarch itself is depicted in a drawing by Puget at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The crew and passengers of the ship appear somewhat inter-mixed; on the quarterdeck, on the bridge, and at the bow we see members of the crew as well as merchants and, possibly, visitors. But the extraordinary strength of the drawing lies in the truly epic magnificence of the vessel's structure, in the sculptural quality of the Neptune, of the five tritons, and the two nereids at the lower levels, together with the two herm-atlants which are reminiscent of those at the famous Town Hall in Toulon which Puget had carved as early as 1656. |
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