French School (Presumably a member of the French Academy), After Pierre Subleyras, c 1733-1793, 'The Sleeping Cupid Discovered by Psyche', oil on canvas, 49in x 71 in., in an antique carved giltwood frame E20000-30000 Note: This lot is an unpublished painting after the identical canvas by the Late Baroque French artist Pierre Subleyras (1699-1749), which he painted in 1732 as an overdoor for Palazzo Mancini, Rome, the then seat of the French Academy, where Subleyras had begun work as a pensionnaire in 1728 That original overdoor by Subleyras was removed during a sack of Palazzo Mancini in 1793 or shortly thereafter, and eventually made its way onto the art market: it appeared in the Laneuville sale in Paris in 1823, and was rediscovered in a Brussels private collection in 1975, through the 17th c inscription on its back, 'Psyche ou la Raison, armee contre l'Amour / auctro Subleyras' (Olivier Michel and Pierre Rosenberg, 1699 1749, Paris and Rome, 1987, p 153, fig 1.) The metric size of Subleyras's dismantled overdoor is 137 x 193 cm., and the corresponding measurements of this otherwise exact replica are 124 x 180 cm., making it 6.5 cm (or 2.5 in.) smaller than the original on all sides That fact very strongly suggests that this copyist, otherwise so extremely faithful to Subleyras's prototype, had access only to the face of the overdoor as it was installed in its paneled surround in Palazzo Mancini, and thus had available only the sight size of the original, rather than its stretcher size (some 2.5in of each edge of which was evidently inset into its architectural frame) That consideration, in turn, indicates that this copyist was almost certainly working in the French Academy itself, between the installation of Subleyras's canvas and its removal in or after the sack of Palazzo Mancini, or in the 60 years between c 1733 and 1793 The potential candidates among Academy pensionnaires who might have been inspired to replicate the Late Baroque masterpiece include many of the greatest names in French painting, any one of whom may well have used this thinner, less expensive fabric, and bold, quick brushwork, for the learning benefits of such a homage.