Follower of Charles Le Brun (Paris, 1619 – 1690), Entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon

Follower of Charles Le Brun (Paris, 1619 – 1690) Entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon Oil on canvas, 29 x 36 cm – with frame, 43 x 51 cm The triumphant entry of Alexander the Great into Babylon, a subject of great popularity in 17th and 18th-century European art, is here rendered in a reduced format by a painter following Charles Le Brun, who was directly inspired by the master's famous autograph composition preserved at the Louvre. The oil on canvas work skillfully condenses the entire scenic apparatus devised by the French painter, reinterpreting its fundamental compositional nuclei in a more intimate version, yet with the same dramatic tension. The scene opens onto a fantastical architectural landscape that evokes the oriental grandeur of Babylon through a backdrop of colonnades, arches, and receding terraces. In the background, one glimpses temple structures and wall backdrops alluding to the legendary Hanging Gardens, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world described by Quintus Curtius Rufus as supported by stone columns and irrigated by secret aqueducts. At the center of the composition, Alexander's triumphal chariot, drawn by elephants, dominates: the Macedonian leader, seated regally and dressed in armor and a feathered helmet, holds the scepter of command. Around the chariot moves a varied crowd of soldiers, dignitaries, bearers, and common people, animating the scene with agitated gestures and dynamic postures. In the foreground to the left, a group of women and children is rendered with particular attention to pathos: a seated woman with an infant in her arms and another bent towards the ground evoke the vanquished populations or subjects prostrate before the victor. At the far left, leaning against the architectural structure, stands the colossal statue of Semiramis, the legendary queen founder of Babylon, recognizable by the scepter held in one hand and the pomegranate in the other, a symbol of state unity. Le Brun was inspired for this figure by the Mattei type Pudicitia preserved in the Vatican, and the follower painter captures its austere and monumental character, albeit simplifying its rendering. To fully understand the meaning and popularity of a work like this, it is necessary to recall who Charles Le Brun was and what an extraordinary role he played in the history of European art. Born in Paris in 1619 into a family of sculptors, Le Brun showed exceptional talent early on, attracting the attention of Chancellor Séguier, who financed his training in Rome from 1642 to 1645. In the eternal city, the young painter studied with Nicolas Poussin, absorbing his compositional rigor and antiquarian culture, and directly engaged with the great masters of the past and contemporary Baroque painting. Upon his return to France, his career experienced a meteoric rise: in 1648, he was among the founders of the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, an institution destined to codify the principles of the French Grand Goût and train generations of artists according to a canon based on reason, imitation of the ancients, and the study of Raphael and Poussin. The true leap in quality came with the patronage of Louis XIV and his minister Colbert, who in 1661 appointed Le Brun director of the Manufacture des Gobelins, the great royal workshop that produced tapestries, furniture, goldsmithery, and all kinds of decorative objects for the royal residences. In this capacity, Le Brun became the absolute artistic director of the Sun King's image, designing the decorative cycles of Versailles, conceiving the cartoons for the tapestries of the history of Alexander and the king, and overseeing the Grande Galerie and the Galerie des Glaces. In 1664, he was awarded the title of Premier peintre du Roi, the highest recognition the monarchy could bestow upon an artist, and maintained this undisputed primacy until Colbert's death in 1683, when court intrigues favored the rise of the rival Pierre Mignard. The pictorial cycle dedicated to Alexander the Great, of which the Entry into Babylon is a fundamental part along with the Battle of the Granicus, the Crossing of the Granicus, the Battle of Arbela, and the Queens of Persia at the Feet of Alexander, represents the pinnacle of his production and, at the same time, a sophisticated political program, in which the exploits of the Macedonian leader transparently allude to the ambitions for greatness of Louis XIV. The dissemination of Le Brun's compositions occurred through multiple channels. Girard Audran engraved the Entry into Babylon in 1676 on four large plates, and similar engravings were made for the other canvases in the cycle, allowing painters, decorators, and artisans across the continent to study and replicate those inventions. In France, numerous followers and pupils of Le Brun produced reduced versions, copies, and variations of his most famous works.