Rare Baroque Master for LACMA

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art has evidently begun to spend the $5 million it raised at auction this June. Using the European Paintings Deaccession Fund, it's bought a 1653 Isaac Moillon painting, Sophonisbe Drinking Poison, said to be the first work by this French classicist in any American museum. Isaac was the brother of the better-known — still fairly obscure — Louise Moillon, represented by two still lifes in the Norton Simon Museum. Isaac, a history painter and tapestry designer, is a more recent rediscovery, subject of a 2005 exhibition in Aubusson, France. As Sophonisbe Drinking Poison demonstrates, mannerism was alive and well and living in Paris, far into the baroque age.
A smaller Isaac Moillon sold for 13,750 Euros this summer, so LACMA's purchase probably represents less than one percent of the funds raised in the June auction. There's more on the Moillon at LACMA's site, which is now posting acquisition news regularly.