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 (; ; ) is a former Ancient Greek temple, temple on the Acropolis of Athens, Athenian Acropolis, Greece, that was dedicated to the Greek gods, goddess Athena. Its decorative sculptures are considered some of the high points of c ...
, 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 Painting, painter, Physiognomy, physiognomist, Aesthetics, art theorist, and a director of several art schools of his time. He served as a court painter to Louis XIV, ...
. 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 a national art museum in Paris, France, and one of the most famous museums in the world. It is located on the Rive Droite, Right Bank of the Seine in the city's 1st arrondissement of Paris, 1st arron ...
, 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 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
A metope (; ) is a rectangular architectural element of the Doric order, filling the space between triglyphs in a frieze
, a decorative band above an architrave.
In earlier wooden buildings the spaces between triglyphs were first open, and ...
South 14, known only from this drawing.
File:Carrey.png, ''The embassy of the Marquis de Nointel in Athens in 1674'', Jacques Carrey, Museum of Fine Arts of 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