Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and Antoine Monnoyer. Problems of attribution (Floral still-lifes, painting)

The Lille Musee des Beaux Arts collections possess six floral compositions, five of which are attributed to Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer and one to Jean-Baptiste Blin de Fontenay. With the help of a description from an old inventory, the present article endeavours to prove that one of these compositions originally comes from the collections of Louis XIV; the author furthermore sets out to re-establish the former attribution to Jean-Baptiste Monnoyer for the painting attributed to Blin de Fontenay, and to reject the four remaining paintings of the French school. The author identifies one of the paintings in the Louvre attributed to Jean-Baptiste Blin de Fontenay as in fact the reception piece by Antoine Monnoyer submitted to the Academie de peinture et sculpture. This identification is based on descriptions in manuscript and published inventories of paintings belonging to the Academie, and is corroborated by careful stylistic comparison with undisputed works by the same master.