Claude Vignon

Born Tours, 19 May 1593; Died Paris, 10 May 1670.

French painter, printmaker and illustrator. Born into a prosperous family in Tours, he received his early training in Paris, probably in Jacob Bunel’s studio. In 1609–10 he travelled to Rome; although his presence there is recorded only in 1618–20, he was probably based there throughout that decade, becoming a member of the community of young French artists that included Simon Vouet and Valentin de Boullogne. They were all predominantly influenced by the art of Caravaggio and of his most direct follower Bartolomeo Manfredi. Vignon’s severe half-length figures (St Paul, Turin, Gal. Sabauda; Four Church Fathers, on loan to Cambridge, Fitzwilliam), executed possibly even earlier than 1615, are in a Caravaggesque style, as are his paintings of singers, musicians and drinkers (e.g. the Young Singer, Paris, Louvre), although the latter group owes more to the style of contemporary genre painting. However, Vignon was already showing an interest in new artistic experiments, the origins of which were northern, Venetian and Mannerist. His sensitivity to the splendid colouring of Venice and to the art of Jacques Bellange, Georges Lallemand and Jacques Callot is manifest in his Martyrdom of St Matthew (1617; Arras, Mus. B.-A.), a work with striking references to Caravaggio’s painting of the same subject (Rome, S Luigi dei Francesi; see fig.), and still more so in his Adoration of the Magi (1619; Dayton, OH, A. Inst.), which also shows clear links with the art of several precursors of Rembrandt, including Adam Elsheimer, Pieter Lastman, Jakob Pynas and particularly Leonard Bramer. Towards the end of his time in Rome, Vignon was awarded first prize in a painting competition organized by Cardinal Lodovico Ludovisi, for what became his most famous painting, the Wedding at Cana (1621–3; Potsdam, destr. 1945; see Pacht Bassani, pl. 23).

By January 1623 Vignon had returned to Paris, where he married Charlotte, daughter of the engraver Thomas de Leu. He soon achieved success at Louis XIII’s court, for which he produced paintings and undertook travels as an art adviser. He worked for ecclesiastical patrons too and before 1638 executed four ‘Mays’, the prestigious altarpieces commissioned annually for Notre-Dame Cathedral by the Paris goldsmiths’ guild. He had a growing reputation with private clients and was an important business associate of the print publisher and art dealer François Langlois. During the 1620s Vignon was highly productive, and it is possible to follow closely his development in a sequence of dated works. He vacillated between several styles. Christ among the Doctors (1623; Grenoble, Mus. B.-A.) and St Jerome (1626; Stockholm, Nmus.) are still strongly marked by the influence of Caravaggio. The Circumcision (1627; Lyon, Mus. B.-A.) and Assumption of the Virgin (1629; La Flèche, Sarthe, St Thomas) are more reserved and static, while the Transfiguration (1624; Châtillon-Coligny, Notre-Dame) and the Triumph of St Ignatius (1628; Orléans, Mus. B.-A.) have a more dramatic, Baroque impulse. Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1624; Paris, Louvre), which is considered a crucial work (see Sterling), shows a taste for the exotic and for theatrical arrangement and is notable for its thick, encrusted impasto, shot through with golden highlights, and for its unusual combination of colours; it further develops the multiple influences already present in the Adoration of the Magi.

Chronological landmarks are much rarer between 1630 and 1656, the date of Vignon’s last known work. However, the surviving paintings from these years, as well as those known only from engravings or drawings, are abundant. This confirms the almost legendary reputation for speed and prolificness that Vignon enjoyed among his contemporaries and suggests that his position in Paris remained undiminished even after Vouet’s return to France in 1627. While he was passed over for the great decorative schemes of the day, most of which went to Philippe de Champaigne or to Vouet and his collaborators, Vignon nevertheless continued to enjoy the protection of Cardinal Richelieu (for whom he worked on the Palais Cardinal), of Louis XIII and of others in court circles. His work was still in demand for churches and monasteries all over France, and he was highly admired in the rarefied intellectual and artistic circle of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, particularly by Anne, Duchesse de Longueville (1619–79), for whom he decorated the gallery (destr.) at the Château of Thorigny between 1651 and 1653. A proliferation of styles continued to be typical of his art. Although primarily associated with the elegant and mannered quality of the Queen of Sheba, he produced a large number of pictures of a more intimate kind, designed for display in the rooms of private collectors, such as Darius and his Family before Alexander (1633 or 1635; priv. col., see London, Heim Gal. cat., 1979, pl. 32) and the Continence of Scipio (c. 1639; untraced, see Pacht Bassani, 1976, pl. 32). A much more serious and simplified language, which recalls the tradition of the Italian masters of the Counter-Reformation, characterizes most of Vignon’s great religious compositions, such as his St Mamert at the Feet of Christ on the Cross (1635–42; Orléans, Mus. B.-A.) and the Resurrection (1635; Toulouse, Mus. Augustins). His final paintings depend on effects of blended colour, theatrical lighting and poses of great pathos, as in the Ascension (1650; Paris, St Nicolas-des-Champs) and the Death of Cleopatra (c. 1650; Rennes, Mus. B.-A. & Archéol.). Vignon entered the Académie Royale in 1651. His abundant and eclectic production did indeed include facile works, partly executed by his studio, but also, even in his most productive period, works of high quality.

Throughout his career Vignon was active as an etcher, producing such works as the Two Lovers (after Vouet, 1618; Robert-Dumesnil, no. 26), St Peter and St Paul Entombed (1620; rd 19), the Martyrdom of St Catherine (1627) and St Philip Baptizing Queen Candace’s Eunuch (1638). He also had reproductive engravings made by Gilles Rousselet, Abraham Bosse and Jean Couvay, among others, from his drawings, as in the suites of Sibylles (c. 1635), the Sept sages de Grèce (1639–40), the Quatre monarchies (1644–5) and the Femmes fortes (1647). From the end of the 1630s he also became one of the illustrators most sought after by the writers of the Précieux circle, such as Desmarets de Saint-Sorlin (Ariane, 1639), Madeleine de Scudéry (Ibrahim, 1641) and Jean Chapelain (La Pucelle d’Orléans, 1656).

Vignon had 34 children by his two marriages (he married his second wife, Geneviève Ballard, in 1644). The following three were active as painters: Claude François Vignon (1633–1703), who became a member of the Académie Royale in 1667, when he presented his Hercules Striking down Ignorance and Vice in the Presence of Minerva (Paris, Louvre); Philippe Vignon (1638–1701), who became a member of the Académie in 1687 and was best known as a portrait painter—his morceau de réception is of the sculptor Philippe de Buyster (Paris, Louvre); and Charlotte Vignon (b 1639), who was a flower painter.

Paola Pacht Bassani. "Vignon, Claude." In Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online, http://www.oxfordartonline.com.proxy.lib.fsu.edu/subscriber/article/grove/art/T089490 (accessed March 8, 2012).