Although Moses and the Brazen Serpent entered the Crocker collection under the name of Nicolas Loir (1624–1679), it did not appear in the literature of art until 1970 when Pierre Rosenberg mentioned it in passing in his article on the Crocker's French drawings.(1) With some reservation he supported the Loir attribution, while wondering if François Verdier should be considered. The story, taken from the Old Testament (Numbers 21:4–9), tells of how God punished the Israelites with a plague of poisonous snakes for speaking out against God and Moses. After many Israelites died, the people relented and God told Moses to make a serpent out of brass and display it on a post. Those Israelites who were bitten would only be cured if they looked upon the image. Those who refused to look would perish. Because of its obvious parallel to the Crucifixion, the subject was frequently painted.

Loir was trained in the studio of Sebastien Bourdon and in many ways his style recalls that of his master. In 1647 he went to Rome for a period of two years and was much struck with—among other things—Raphael's paintings and those of Nicolas Poussin. The present composition is in many ways constructed like a Poussin, densely populated with figures in movement. It has been compared with Poussin's Rape of the Sabine Women.(2) One of the authors of the 1973 Crocker catalogue directed by Seymour Howard also sees the influence of the Laocoön, the famous Hellenistic sculptural group which Loir would very likely have seen in Rome.(3)

Quite recently Christine Giviskos has thoroughly studied the drawing in a Crocker catalogue.(4) Although in his time Loir received recognition and was occupied with many important commissions and work, he remains a rather unfamiliar artist in our time. He was selected to paint the May of Notre Dame in 1650, depicting Saint Paul and the False Prophets, and he was especially well known in connection with his work in the Tuileries Palace and at Versailles. He was also elected to the Académie royale in 1663.

Giviskos observed that Loir's composition owed something to Bourdon's Israelites Dancing around the Golden Calf (5) where the figure of Moses with the tables of the Law is similarly placed to the left of the center. Loir probably also knew Le Brun's painting of the Brazen Serpent, for which the Crocker has a study, the figure of a man trying to escape from the snakes at the far right of Le Brun's composition.(6)

Although it has been suggested that the work might well be by Francois Verdier or be by an artist in the circle of Charles Le Brun, it seems, as its old ascription indicates, to fit with what we know of the style of Loir, who was given to densely peopled compositions in the manner of Poussin and Bourdon. In addition to painted and graphic works in the Louvre, there are also concentrations of his drawings in other museums, notably in Berlin and the British Museum. His figures are often bulky and energetic in their movement and gestures. Although the present work was squared for transfer and is fully worked up as a final compositional sketch or modello, the painting for which it was prepared is not known.

Although in his own time Loir received recognition and was occupied with many important commissions, it is curious that he remains relatively unknown now. The closest thing to a real study of him is that of Moana Weil-Curiel,(7) who wrote about Loir at the time of the large Bourdon exhibition in Montpellier. It is possible that many of Loir's works have been confused with that of other artists such as Bourdon, whose work his style most closely resembles.

Cara Denison, in William Breazeale, with Cara Denison, Stacey Sell, and Freyda Spira, A Pioneering Collection: Master Drawings from the Crocker Art Museum, exh. cat. Sacramento and tour, 2010