Jean Joubert Joins the Louvre

These two works by Jean Joubert will enrich the Louvre’s collections, which makes sense: the museum already has 69 of his miniatures depicting Old and New Testament scenes. At first there were 136, made for a room in Versailles where they were hung so close together that they covered the walls, oval and rectangular works alternating with each other. The head curator of Versailles, Christian Baulez, says the room may have been created for the infanta Mariana Victoria of Spain, who lived in the palace during her engagement to Louis XV, before it was occupied by queen Maria Leszczynska and remodelled more than once. Removed in 1730, the miniatures were mentioned in 1785 as being kept in a crate at the warehouse of the Superintendence of Buildings. Then the sale leapt forward to the early 20th century with Jean-Paul Alaux’s Japanese Visions, 12 colour prints in sleeves dated 1909, 1912 and 1913. Published by Devambez in 1920 and dedicated to Jean Corret, they fetched €21,488. Around the same time, Mathurin Méheut painted Rocks in the Undergrowth at Fontainebleau in oil on two cardboard panels, mounted together on frames, whose autumn colours won a bidder’s heart for €17,822.