Description
As an official draftsman to the king, Charles-Nicolas Cochin was responsible for documenting royal events, festivities, and ceremonies. When the Spanish princess Marie-Thérèse, wife of Louis XV’s eldest son, died in childbirth, she was given two lavish funerals: one at the Church of Saint Denis, and another, represented in this drawing, at Notre Dame in Paris. Cochin’s drawing shows how the interior of the gothic cathedral was theatrically redecorated in the current rococo style. Beneath the majestic canopy in the center of the nave, an ornate arched structure, a baldequin, contains the princess’s coffin.
Provenance
Private Collection, France (?-?); (Didier Aaron, Inc., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) (?-2000); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (2000-)
Funeral for Marie-Thérèse of Spain, Dauphine of France, in the Church of Nôtre Dame, Paris, on November 24, 1746
Charles-Nicolas Cochinc. 1746
Accession Number
2000.2
Medium
Pen and black ink and gray wash heightened with white gouache on cream laid paper, incised (with graphite) for transfer
Dimensions
Sheet: 45 x 30.9 cm (17 11/16 x 12 3/16 in.)
Classification
Drawing
Credit Line
John L. Severance Fund