Spaniel with partridge

CHRISTOPHE HUET 

Died 1759 

French School 

‘Spaniel with partridge’ 

Oil on canvas

Signed

14¾ x 18¼ inches

Little information is available about the life of Christophe Huet. However, we know that he was the brother of Nicolas Huet the Elder, known as an animal and still life painter. He was also the uncle of Jean Baptiste Huet, a major painter of country scenes and animals and also as a watercolourist, designer and engraver, who worked with Boucher the important French artist.

Christopher Huet was known, along with his contemporaries La Joue and Gillot, as a painter of charming, decorative subjects popular in 18th century France. He also painted Chinese scenes for L' Hotel de Rohan and the Opera

It has been acknowledged that he was the painter of a series of capriccio pictures at Chantilly originally attributed to Antoine Watteau.

Although a resident of Paris, he was successful enough to be able to afford a country house at Bagnolet.

Pictures of his can be seen at La Musée de Nantes and those at Valennciennes and Vire but his most famous work is his decoration at Chantilly.