French School, mid 18th Century

Bramshill, Joan Penelope Cope (old label pasted on the original backing bearing date partly lost [19]32);
Milan, Bonomi family;
sale Milan, Finarte, 8-9 July 1983, lot 640 A/B (as F.-H. Drouais)

N. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, Online edition, Drouais p. 1, reproduced (as possibly by Frédou) 

Paper laid down on canvas and on a wooden stretcher, has the original board backing which has not been removed, so the back of the canvas is not visible. Rubbing especially along the margins. The surface of the pastel has suffered a bit overall. Colors are still strong and subtle. Sold in a 19th Century carved and gilded French frame as is its pendant.
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In this delightful portrait an exquisitely dressed young boy, possibly aged around three, wears an elaborate silk 'hussar-style' headdress lavishly trimmed with silver threads and ostrich feathers.  Like the following lot, its pendant, the pastel bears a paper exhibition label (no older than the beginning of the 20th century) pasted onto the original backing board, and a wooden label on the front of the frame, both of which identify the artist as François-Hubert Drouais (1727-1775), who was celebrated for his unparalleled portraits of children.  The attribution to Drouais has, however, been questioned in recent times and cannot now be sustained, not least because there are no securely attributed surviving pastels by the artist with which these can be compared. 

The identity of the sitters is also difficult to resolve.  Further labels pasted to the back of the portraits identify the children as the future Louis XVI (1754–93) and his younger brother Louis-Stanislas-Xavier, Comte de Provence, and there is indeed a noticeable resemblance to the children in a painted double portrait of the brothers by Drouais, known in several versions, one, dated 1757, now in the São Paulo Museum of Art. But in the Drouais painting the sumptuously dressed brothers wear the Order of the Saint-Esprit, whereas here we see none of the regalia appropriate to the status of the Enfants de France, making the traditional identification implausible.  Neil Jeffares, writing without having seen the originals (see Literature), wondered if the identities of the two sitters had simply been transposed in the written labels, and also tentatively suggested an alternative attribution to Jean-Martial Frédou (1710-1795).  All that can really be said with any certainty, though, is that this pastel and its pendant are of very high quality, can be dated around the end of the 1750s, and must have been executed for an important aristocratic family.