This small-scale design, which bears stylus marks from being traced, is likely for the decoration of a medal, plaque, or plate. The Olympian gods are seated around the table: Juno and Jupiter (his eagle visible at lower center), Minerva, Apollo and Diana, Neptune, Pluto and Proserpina (?), and prominently on the right, Venus and Cupid; the group at left includes Mars, Hercules, Mercury and Saturn with his scythe. A servant is approaching with a covered bowl. Three female figures with wings, perhaps the Graces strewing flowers, hover above the party. Feast subjects were popular motifs for serving platters after Leonard Limousin produced an enameled plate featuring the Wedding of Cupid and Psyche around 1562.
While many of the works from the Desmarais album were stamped at the time of the 1984 sale with a D in black ink (Lugt 3358) the stamp on the Morgan drawing, in purple ink at lower right, is the mark of dealer Richard Day.
Numbered on verso at upper right "14" in a circle, at lower right in graphite, "37".
Watermark: none visible through lining.
Desmarais, François, active 1729, former owner.
Rorimer, James J. (James Joseph), Mrs., donor.
Solley, Thomas T., donor.
Ryskamp, Charles, ed. Twenty-First Report to the Fellows of the Pierpont Morgan Library, 1984-1986. New York : Pierpont Morgan Library, 1989, p. 335.