François Pascal Simon Gérard, called Baron Gérard

Prince Nicolas Lupukhin-Demidov, Korsun, 1907;

L. de Pitteurs Mugaerts d'Orange;

By whose widow sold, Brussels, 14 December 1927, lot 54;

Prince Leopold von Preussen;

By whose widow sold, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 23-25 August 1928, lot 452;

Princess Koudacheff, Rome, circa 1930;

Anonymous sale, Lucerne, Galerie Fischer, 19-22 May 1992, lot 2113;

Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 8 December 1993, lot 63;

Where acquired.

Baron Gérard (nephew of the artist), Lettres adressées au Baron François Gérard, peinture d'Histoire, par les artists et les personnages célèbres de son temps, Paris 1888, vol. II, p. 412;

A. Ryszkiewicz, Francusko-Polskie Związki Artystyczne, 1967, p. 144, reproduced p. 64;

A. Latreille, François Gérard, Catalogue raisonne des portraits peints, École du Louvre, Paris 1973, cat. no. 144.

St. Petersburg, Palais de la Tauride, Exposition artistique et historique de portraits Russes, 1905.

Though born in Rome, Baron Gérard spent most of his career in Paris, where he became one of the most sought-after portraitists of the European nobility. Here he has depicted Victoire Choiseul-Gouffier (1780-1827) elegantly set in a landscape, looking over her right shoulder. Choiseul-Gouffier was born Countess Potocka and descended from a Polish noble family whose seat was at Potok near Cracow. The Russian Emperor Paul I arranged her marriage at St. Petersburg in 1801 to Antoine Louis Octave de Choiseul Gouffier (1773-1840), son of his close advisor Marie Gabriel Florent Auguste de Choiseul Gouffier, former French Ambassador at Constantinople. The couple had three sons, Edouard, Alexandre Felix and Arthus Octavien, who perpetuated the Choiseul line in Russia. She later marriage General Alexis Nicolaevich Bakmetiev, governor of Bessarabia.

The portrait dates to 1810. A copy after this picture was recorded by Ryskiewicz in the Hotel Lambert, Paris.

We are grateful to Alain Latreille for his assistance with the cataloguing of this lot.