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Wizards in design were the artists who developed it and those who continue it in our own times. Audran had in his studio André Watteau, whose very name spells sophisticated pastorals of exceeding loveliness. Watteau worked with Audran when he was producing his most inspired set of tapestry, on which we must dwell for a bit for pure pleasure. This set is called the Portières des Dieux.
With the exception of the first, he invented and painted all the subjects. They have been engraved by one Audran. The Duchess thought them so pretty that she had them worked in a larger size in tapestry; and these, I think, are better than the engravings. My son's learning has not the least tinge of pedantry. He knows a quantity of facetious stories, which he learnt in Italy and in Spain.
This was the Hall of the Arras, a superb waiting-room with lofty painted ceiling and admirable Gobelins tapestry designed by Audran and representing the miracles of Jesus.
When he had nothing to do he painted for one of the Duchess's cabinets all the pastoral romance of "Daphnis and Chloe." He painted a part of the battles of Alexander. These designs were engraved by Benoit Audran; they embellish what is called "the Regent's edition" of the Pastoral of Longus, which was printed under his inspection in the year 1718.
Agnes for the church of that Saint, and the Madonna del Rosario, both of which were engraved by Gerard Audran, and taken to Paris and placed in the Louvre by order of Napoleon.
Thus, given so good excuse for a new school of decoration, Claude Audran snatched up his talented brush and put down his dainty inspirations with unfaltering delicacy of touch. He wrote upon his canvas poems in life, symphonies in colour, created a whole world of tasteful fancy, a world whose entire intent was to please.
No better proof of the exalted merits of Domenichino can be desired, than the fact that upwards of fifty of his works have been engraved by the most renowned engravers, as Gerard Audran, Raffaelle Morghen, Sir Robert Strange, C. F. von Muller, and other illustrious artists; many of these also have been frequently repeated.
We have no school of opera yet, but the best operettas of Victor Herbert and De Koven deserve mention by the side of those of the French. Offenbach, Lecocq, and Audran, the Viennese Strauss, Suppé, and Milloecker, the English Sullivan.
When living with Audran, Watteau had every opportunity for studying the works of the older masters, especially those of Rubens, whose decorations, executed for Marie de Medici, had not at that time been removed to the Louvre. Besides copying from these older pictures, Watteau was employed by Audran in the execution of designs for wall decorations, etc.
The talent of Audran, not content with figures alone, was lavishly expended on those ingenious decorative designs which formed the frame and setting of the figures, the airy world in which they lived and in the borders that confined the whole.
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