Getty Museum
Study for the figure of Astasius
Creator
Eustache Le SueurFrench Artist · 1616–1655
All works by this person →Eustache Le Sueur's father, a woodworker and sculptor, placed his son Eustache in Simon Vouet's studio when he was about sixteen. Unlike many of his peers, Le Sueur never went to Rome, instead finding his classicizing influence in Vouet's Baroque style. Primarily a painter of religious subjects for churches in Paris and its environs, he was said to have little use for immoral excesses and to have
More on Getty ULAN- Date
- about 1652
- Medium
- Black chalk
- Culture
- French
- Department
- Drawings
- Institution
- Getty Museum
From this low point of view, the massive figure of the Roman general Astasius appears large and strong. During his occupation of Milan, Astasius ordered his soldiers to arrest any Christians they could find. His soldiers dragged two brothers, Gervais and Protase, before the general, who ordered them to be killed when they refused to make sacrifices to the god Jupiter. Eustache Le Sueur captured Astasius at the moment when he turns to watch the presentation of Gervais and Protase. Le Sueur drew this monumental figure with a combination of vigorous sketching and precise definition. While the chalk lines on the left side of the figure are free and loose, on the right, the artist painstakingly depicted the drapery folds, using hatching and smudging to create the dark creases. In March 1652 the churchwardens of the church of Saints Gervais and Protase in Paris commissioned six tapestries from Le Sueur about the lives of the saints. This drawing was one of several studies made for an enormous multi-figured tapestry cartoon. The artist delivered the final design to the tapestry manufactory in May 1653.
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