Endymion asleep on Diana’s lap by Nicolas Bertin

 

A pupil of Guy Louis Vernansal, then of Jean-Baptiste Jouvenet and Bon de Boulogne, Nicolas Bertin spent four years in Rome from 1685 to 1689, after winning the Prix de Rome. Correggio’s ethereal style and the colour palette of the Venetian masters left a lasting aesthetic influence on the artist. Admitted to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1703, he became a professor there in 1716. He received commissions for decorative works from Louis XIV for Versailles and Trianon, and from the Elector of Bavaria in Munich, embodying French history painting at the turn of the^17th and^18th centuries. His mythological compositions, with their refined colours, foreshadow the spirit of the Rococo, celebrating feminine grace and sensuality. The painting held at the Château de Ferney is a prime example of this: the composition is characterised by sinuous lines, such as those in the arrangement of the putti, whilst the colour scheme is both brilliant and warm.

The story of Endymion’s slumber, recounted in several Greek and Roman sources, alternates between the figures of Diana and Selene, no doubt due to the confusion between Selene, goddess of the moon, and Diana, another lunar goddess. Endymion, already married, is a handsome shepherd with whom Selene, the goddess of the moon, falls in love. She asks Zeus to plunge her beloved into an eternal sleep in order to preserve his beauty. He has been resting ever since in a cave in Caria, and Selene comes to watch him sleep every night.

In Nicolas Bertin’s painting, the scene is set in a woodland glade, where a majestic waterfall flows. The goddess, with her translucent skin and full of sensuality, is about to cover the handsome young man—who is already asleep—with her cloak; his pose is neither languid nor virile. Here, Endymion appears more like a child resting on his mother’s knee, whilst Diana fixes her gaze directly on the viewer, as if to signal her power.

The scene is enlivened by graceful putti, who are preparing to offer a garland of flowers, to shoot the arrow of love from a cloud, or to embrace a doe. A dog, the traditional symbol of loyalty, lies at Endymion’s feet.

C. B. Bailey, The Loves of the Gods from Watteau to David, exhibition catalogue , Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, October 1991–January 1992 and Fine Art Museum, Fort Worth, May–August 1992, Paris, RMN, 1991.

J.-L. Bordeaux, *François Lemoyne and his Generation*, Neuilly-sur-Seine , Arthéna, 1984.

T. Lefrançois, *Nicolas Bertin (1668–1736), History Painter*, Neuilly-sur-Seine , Arthéna, 1981.