Jacques Carrey (12 January 1649 – 18 February 1726) was a French painter and draughtsman, now remembered almost exclusively for the series of drawings he made of the
Parthenon
The Parthenon (; grc, Παρθενών, , ; ell, Παρθενώνας, , ) is a former temple on the Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the goddess Athena during the fifth century BC. Its decorative sculptures are considere ...
, Athens, in 1674.
Born in
Troyes, Carrey was a pupil in the atelier of
Charles Le Brun
Charles Le Brun (baptised 24 February 1619 – 12 February 1690) was a French painter, physiognomist, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. As court painter to Louis XIV, who declared him "the greatest French artist of ...
. Carrey was recommended by his master to be included in the entourage of the embassy of
de Nointel to Constantinople in August 1670 as a draughtsman. Part of de Nointel's commission was to purchase manuscripts, medallions and sculptures while abroad. As a result of this, between 1670 and 1679 Carrey executed over 500 drawings of towns, antiquities, ceremonies and examples of local fetes and customs in Asia Minor, Greece and Palestine.
De Nointel's group visited Athens in November 1674. Here, in a two-week period, Carrey produced about fifty-five drawings of the sculptures on the Parthenon. Thirty-five of these, showing details of the pediments, metopes and frieze, now survive in the Paris
Bibliotheque Nationale. Since 20% of the Parthenon's sculpture was destroyed in the
Venetian bombardment of 1687, Carrey's work is the sole record of much of this missing section. His red and black chalk drawings, probably taken from life, meticulously record the cracks and other damage, making no attempt to complete missing details.
On returning to Paris in 1679 Carrey presented Le Brun with the drawings he had made in Constantinople; several are in the Cabinet des Dessins at the
Louvre
The Louvre ( ), or the Louvre Museum ( ), is the world's most-visited museum, and an historic landmark in Paris, France. It is the home of some of the best-known works of art, including the ''Mona Lisa'' and the ''Venus de Milo''. A central l ...
, Paris. Three paintings known to have been made by Carrey in 1675 are presently unknown, but the painting depicting de Nointel before the City of Athens in the Musée des Beaux-Arts,
Chartres is almost certainly his. He is also known to have painted a cycle of six paintings of the life of
Saint Pantaleon
Saint Pantaleon ( el, Παντελεήμων, russian: Пантелеи́мон, translit=Panteleímon; "all-compassionate"), counted in the West among the late-medieval Fourteen Holy Helpers and in the East as one of the Holy Unmercenary Hea ...
for Église Saint-Pantaléon, Troyes.
Tableau: Scène de la vie de saint Pantaléon, Ministère de la culture
/ref> He died in his home city, aged 77.
File:Metope south 14.jpg, Metope
In classical architecture, a metope (μετόπη) is a rectangular architectural element that fills the space between two triglyphs in a Doric frieze, which is a decorative band of alternating triglyphs and metopes above the architrave of a bu ...
South 14, known only from this drawing.
File:Carrey.png, ''L’ambassade du Marquis de Nointel à Athènes'', Jacques Carrey, Musée des Beaux-Arts de Chartres.
References
Bibliography
*Corrard de Breban, ''Recherches Jacques Carrey, pentre troyen'', Mémoires de la Société Académique de l'Aube, 1864. p. 77-91
*H. Omont, ''Athenes au XVIIe siecle. Dessins des sculptures du Parthenon attribues a Jacques Carrey et conservès à la Bibltothèque Nationale, accompagnès de vues et plans d Athènes et de l'Acropole.'', Paris, 1898
*R. Heberdey: ''Untersuchungen zu den Zeichnungen Jacques Carrey's'', Jhft. Österreich. Archäol. Inst. Wien, xxxi (1939), pp. 96–141
*T. Bowie and D. Thimme, ''The Carrey Drawings of the Parthenon Sculptures'', Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1971.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Carrey, Jacques
17th-century French painters
French male painters
18th-century French painters
French draughtsmen
People from Troyes
1649 births
1726 deaths
18th-century French male artists