François Hubert Drouais

Commissioned by the Duc de Bouillon, Paris, in 1755-56;
Madame Roussel, Paris;
By whom sold, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, March 25-28, 1912, lot 4, There purchased by Schoeller Manheimer, Amsterdam;
Anonymous sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, May 27, 1932, lot 19;
Private Collection, Belgium;
With Wildenstein & Co. Inc., New York, 1976;
British Rail Pension Fund;
By whom sold, New York, Sotheby's, January 30, 1997, lot 100, there purchased by the present collector.

Paris, Salon de 1757, no. 108 ("M. le Prince de Bouillon, & M. le Chevalier de Bouillon, peints sous les habits de Montagnards, faisant danser la Marmotte");
The Hague, Mauritshuis, lent by Stichting Nederlandsch Kunstbezit, from 1947 (see Literature below);
London, Royal Academy of Arts, European Masters of the 18th Century; Winter Exhibition, 1954-1955, p. 36, cat. no. 73;
Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, La Douce France, August - December 1964, cat. no. 19;
London Royal Academy of Arts, France in the 18th Century, January - March 1968, p. 67, cat. no. 208 (cat. by D. Sutton);
King's Lynn, Norfolk, Fermoy Art Gallery, Children through the Ages, 1977;
Malibu, California, J. Paul Getty Museum, on loan 1981-1995.

C.F.P. Dorbec, "Les Drouais," La Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, vol. XVII, January 1905, pp. 54-8 (an engraving by C.D. Melini is reproduced opposite p. 56);
C. Gabillot, "Les Trois Drouais," Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1905, pp. 177-94, 288-98, 384-400; 1906, pp. 155-74, 246-58, esp. pp. 388-89;
L. Dumont-Wilden, Le portrait en France, Brussels 1909, p. 180;
A. Frapart, "Les Grandes Ventes," Les Arts, April 1912, reproduced p. 13;
I. Errera, Répertoire des peintures datées, Paris 1920, vol. I, p. 415;
Beaux-Arts, April 25, 1932, IV, reproduced p. 8;
Figaro illustré, September 1932, reproduced p. 456;
Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures and Sculptures in the Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague 1949, pp. vi and 21, cat. no. 859;
F.A. Braam, Art Treasures in the Benelux Countries, The Hague 1958, I, p. 118, no. 1295;
D. Diderot, Salons, ed. by J. Seznec and J. Adhemar, 1957, Vol. I, p. 50 (where the painting is confused with that in the Frick Collection (66.1.164) of The Comte and Chevalier de Choiseul as Savoyards, exhibited at the Salon of 1759);
The Frick Collection. Vol. II, Paintings, 1968, pp. 87-90, esp. p. 88;
A. P. de Mirimonde, "Scènes de genres musicales de l'école française au XVIIIe siecle dans les collections publiques," La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, 18, 1968, no. 3, pp. 136-138;
E. Munhall, "Savoyards in French Eighteenth-Century Art," Apollo, 87, February 1968, pp. 86-94, reproduced p. 92, fig. 9;
D. Wakefield, French Eighteenth-Century Painting, London 1984, pp. 71, 171 (where it is mistakenly said to have been sold at Sotheby's London, December 1978);
A. Wintermute, The French Portrait 1550-1850, New York 1996, p. 50.

 

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting is in beautiful state. The canvas has been lined and the texture of the paint has been slightly compromised as a result. The paint layer is most likely slightly dirty yet we would not encourage any further cleaning. A few retouches have been added which are visible under ultraviolet light addressing isolated spots but none of any significance. The most notable element to the condition of this picture is the addition of pieces of canvas and subsequent restoration. In the lower corners a triangular section has been added and in the upper corners a slightly more complex curved section has been added. In all cases this was done to eliminate what was originally a shaped painting; these additions create a rectangular picture out of what was once a more rococo shape. These additions are visible and the restoration along these joins requires attention, although this could be quite easily done.
In response to your inquiry, we are pleased to provide you with a general report of the condition of the property described above. Since we are not professional conservators or restorers, we urge you to consult with a restorer or conservator of your choice who will be better able to provide a detailed, professional report. Prospective buyers should inspect each lot to satisfy themselves as to condition and must understand that any statement made by Sotheby's is merely a subjective qualified opinion.
NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING CONDITION OF A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD "AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF SALE PRINTED IN THE CATALOGUE.

The son of a portrait painter, Drouais must have first studied with his father and later with Boucher, Natoire and Carle van Loo; he was agréé in 1754 and finally received into the Académie as a portraitist in 1758. But, it was evident even from his first Salon of 1755 that the young artist was able to invest traditional court portraiture with a new informality while still retaining a highly defined sense of elegance. At this Salon, the artist was much admired and seems to have attracted enormous attention. By the following year, he was commissioned to paint family portraits, some on a truly grand scale, such as that in the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the sitters of which remain unknown (1946.7.4; 96 by 76 1/2  in.). Portrait commissions from the Royal family followed (including the mistresses of the king, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry), and, given the structure of the court, the nobility quickly sought Drouais' talent. Although the artist was not given to sharp, penetrating and introspective depictions of his sitters, he was without peer in painting their outer appearances: the laces, satins and velvets, jewels and other attributes of court life.

Although Drouais made his career primarily as a society portrait painter in the tradition of Largillièrre and Nattier, his portraits déguisés were very different from theirs. Instead of court ladies depicted in the guise of antique goddesses, Drouais chose to depict his ladies and gentlemen (and especially their children) in pastoral guises (say, of shepherds and shepherdesses) or as members of different, perhaps less fortunate classes such as harvest workers or Savoyards, an attitude that found its most fervent expression with the Marquise de Pompadour who appeared as a milkmaid at her petit-hameau on the grounds of Versailles.

The Salon of 1757 showed eight paintings by Drouais including The Duc de Berry and the Comtesse de Provence as Children (São Paulo), the Prince and Princess de Condé as Gardeners, the Prince de Guémè and Mademoiselle de Soubise as Grape-Gatherers (both formerly Rothschild) as well as the present painting. In future Salons Drouais would exhibit such pictures as The Cousins of the Duc de Choiseul as Savoyards (Frick Collection) in 1758 and The Comte d'Artois and his Sister Playing with Goats (Louvre) from 1763. The artist painted so flatteringly and so successfully the children of the court that even Denis Diderot who was not overly fond of Drouais, admired fulsomely these paintings: Drouais peint bien les enfant; il leur met dans les yeux de la vie, de la transparence, et l'humide te le gras, et le nageant qui y est ils semblent vous regarder et vous sourire même de près... Il n'eut de son temps aucun rival sérieux dans les portraits de femmes et d'enfants [Drouais paints children well; he infuses their eyes with life, transparency, a moist richness, swimming so that they seem to gaze at you and smile at you at the same time... In his time he had no serious rival in the portraiture of women and children] (see Diderot in Literature).

The present portrait depicts the two sons of the Duc de Bouillon as Montagnards (without the entry to the Salon catalogue of 1757, one would have assumed them to be in the guise of Savoyards as has often been suggested, see Literature). One holds a marmot with a ribbon and the other plays a hurdy-gurdy, both activities associated exclusively with the people of the mountains especially in Savoy and in North Italy (at this time, the area was not French but Italian; Savoy was annexed by France only in 1792). From Watteau and Greuze to Deylen and Charpentier, French artists seem to have been drawn to these characters partly because they were exotic (and available on the streets of Paris) but also because they were considered models of filial affection venturing as they did every winter to Paris to earn money to take back to their families in Savoy. In fact, over one half of the male Savoyards came to Paris every year, including children from about eight years old. As the gastarbeiter of the eighteenth century, they performed the more menial tasks including cleaning streets and chimneys, acting as porters (traditionally, the post of porter at the Hôtel Drouot was a Savoyard even into the 20th century!) . The younger members were street entertainers, playing musical intruments such as hurdy-gurdy, recorders and the like with performing rodents such as squirrels and marmots (carried in cases such as the one on which one of Bouillon's sons sits) or carried boîtes à curiosités, or peep shows, depicting battles, foreign cities or even Louis XV. Their appearance was distinctive-three-quarter length, coarse brown coats, long hair, a slightly disheveled look, all topped by three-cornered hats. Thus, the hurdy-gurdy, the marmot and the marmot box, as well as the peep show were their attributes. (In fact, the marmot seems to have been the emblem of the poor Montagnards according to Toussenel¹).  Drouais, of course, has dressed the two young noblemen in velvet examples of Montagnard costume with the whitest of linen shirts. The Frick painting, too, upgrades the Savoyard clothes to the point that the velvet jackets are buttoned with gold. Given the tradition that these people were devoted to their families, it must have been most desirable indeed that parents should want their children depicted in such roles.

The two boys are Jacques Leopold Charles Godefroy, Prince de Bouillon, who was born in 1746, and his younger brother Charles Louis Godefroy, Prince d'Auvergne, born in 1749, who would have been aged ten and seven, the year the painting was signed and dated. What has not been noted is that over a century earlier the then Duc de Bouillon commissioned a portrait of his children from Pierre Mignard (Honolulu Academy of Arts) which is dated Roma 1647.²  In it, Mignard has depicted the three boys in their finery, one of whom offers cherries to a King Charles spaniel. Drouais must certainly have been aware of a tradition of portraits of the youngest members of the Bouillon family, dressed in their finest clothes, playing with pets. For this reason, and others, Drouais produced one of his most enchanting and beautifully painted portraits.

There is a miniature of this painting, possibly by Drouais' father, Hubert, in the Musée du Louvre. The present painting was engraved by Carlo Domenico Melini (1740-1795).

1  See Larousse Grand Dictionaire Universel, p. 478.
2  See France in the Golden Age, Seventeenth-Century French Paintings in American Collections, exhibition catalogue, New York, Metropolitan Mueum of Art 1982, cat. no. 69.