County Museum Gets a Gift of Champaigne Art for Holiday

If it’s the holiday season, it must be time to announce the Ahmanson Foundation’s latest gift of an Old Master painting to the County Museum of Art. But if reminders of the foundation’s perpetual generosity have become an annual ritual, the gifts themselves are never routine.

This year the museum is the proud recipient of an exquisitely painted image of St. Augustine by 17th-Century Flemish painter Philippe de Champaigne, who spent most his life in France. The oil-on-canvas work, painted around 1660, goes on view today in the museum’s 17th-Century painting and sculpture gallery. The museum declined to reveal the price of the work, acquired from a dealer who bought it two years ago at an auction in Europe.

Champaigne (1602-1674) was a leading portraitist and religious painter of his day. In the museum’s new acquisition, a typical example of his work, Champaigne has depicted St. Augustine at a moment of divine inspiration. Seated at his desk with a quill in his right hand, the sumptuously garbed figure looks over his shoulder at a supernatural light that streaks across the room and inflames a heart in the saint’s left hand.

“Some people may find the religious subject matter a little off-putting at first, but this is a painting that will probably become a favorite,” said Philip Conisbee, the museum’s new curator of European paintings and sculpture. Formerly curator of French paintings at the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, Conisbee arrived at his new post last month.

“There’s such a refinement of drawing in this picture, such an abundance of detail without being fussy. The painting never gets dry because the wonderful little brush strokes give it a lively surface,” Conisbee said.

“St. Augustine” is absorbing to observe because the 38 x 25-inch canvas is chock-full of meaningful objects and delicate strokes. The painter seems to have reveled in such details as the upturned corner of a page, the pattern of an Oriental carpet and shimmering ripples of the saint’s flowing white gown.

Painted after the Counter-Reformation, when Roman Catholics reaffirmed their faith and traditions, “St. Augustine” delivers a clear message. The balding saint, whose flaming heart signifies his religious ardor, gains inspiration from the divine light of truth while trampling three books of heresies under his feet. St. Augustine was one of the four fathers of the Church of Rome. He and Sts. Jerome, Gregory and Ambrose are credited with establishing church doctrine.

Champaigne probably used a model for the saint but adapted his appearance to correspond to the “wise man” type that typically represents St. Augustine in art, Conisbee said. The saint’s ornate vestment probably depicts a real 16th-Century bishop’s garment, while the Oriental carpet covering his desk is a studio prop that appears in other Champaigne works.

Earl A. Powell, director of the County Museum of Art, called “St. Augustine” a “significant addition” to the institution’s collection of 17th-Century paintings and an important complement to Claude Lorrain’s landscape and Georges de La Tour’s “Magdalen With the Smoking Flame.”

“Now all we need is a great Poussin,” Conisbee said.

“Preferably as a gift,” added Powell, noting that great Old Master works are still available on the market but their prices continually escalate.

Champaigne was born in Belgium but went to Paris when he was 19 and soon achieved great success, working for Cardinal Richelieu and Louis XIII. Among other commissions, he painted frescoes on the dome of the Sorbonne and decorated the Palais Royal.

Only a handful of Champaigne paintings are in American museums, but the Louvre in Paris counts nine of his works among its most important paintings. They include an interpretation of the Last Supper and a votive painting that commemorates a nun’s miraculous cure of the artist’s paralyzed daughter.