The Life and Artistic Journey of Nicolas Chaperon
Nicolas Chaperon was a French painter, draughtsman, and engraver. Born in Châteaudun, he began his training in Paris as a student of Simon Vouet, adopting the style of his mentor. His artistic development continued during a significant stay in Rome between 1642 and 1651, where he worked in the studio of Nicolas Poussin. Chaperon gained recognition for his suite of engravings based on the Raphael Loggie of the Vatican, created in 1649.
His career was marked by a notable episode involving Poussin, who described Chaperon in correspondence with Paul Fréart de Chantelou as an unruly and vindictive practitioner who refused to complete a copy of a Transfiguration. In 1653, Chaperon was invited by the consuls of Lyon to decorate the hôtel de ville, but he passed away shortly after his arrival in Lyon.
Artistic Legacy and Reassessment
For a period, many of Chaperon's paintings were optimistically attributed to Poussin and entered collections in the US under that name. A reassessment of his work occurred following Jacques Thuillier’s publication of Chaperon's signed and dated Compiègne altarpiece, Presentation of the Virgin.
His surviving works are held in various prestigious collections, including:
- The Vow of Midas, Kunstmuseum, Basel
- The Nurture of Jupiter, Ackland Museum, Chapel Hill, NC
- Presentation of the Virgin, Chapelle Saint-Nicolas, Compiègne
- The Alliance of Bacchus and Venus, Dallas Museum of Art
- Bacchanale, Musée Magnin, Dijon
- Drunken Silenus, Uffizi
- Holy Family with SS Elizabeth and the infant John the Baptist, Gosford House, East Lothian, Scotland
- Penitent Magdalene, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nancy
- Moses and the Bronze Serpent, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nîmes
- Venus, Mercury and Cupid, Musée du Louvre
- Childhood of Bacchus, Musée Sainte-Croix, Poitiers
- The Deluge, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Rouen
