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Jean Berain the Elder (1640-1711)
Design for the Divertissement from "La Pastorale" (first entrée of the opera-ballet Les Muses by Danchet and Campra), 1703.
Pen and black ink and brush and gray wash with red, blue, and yellow wash, with graphite; 351 x 463 mm
Collection of Muriel Butkin
[cat. no. 2]
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Jean Berain
Design for the Divertissement from "La Pastorale"
The designer and ornamentalist Jean Berain created this set for the opening dance in Les Muses, an opera-ballet that debuted at the Royal Music Academy of Paris in 1703. Under the canopy of a wooded grove, shepherds and shepherdesses gather to perform for their patron gods. The symmetrically scattered singers, musicians, and dancers with tambourines stand and move graciously amidst the well-ordered, elegant trees. The man in the foreground to the left of the altar holds a type of small bagpipe called a musette, a perfect choice of instrument for this pastoral scene. The exhibition includes an equally large but more complex set decoration made a century later by the scene designer Pierre-Luc-Charles Cicéri: Decoration Executed for the Birthday of His Majesty the King of Westphalia.
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Antoine Coypel
Head of a Young Man
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