Beschreibung:

Details
ATTRIBUÉ À MAURICE-QUENTIN DE LA TOUR (SAINT-QUENTIN 1704-1788)
Portrait de Madame Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Anne-Jeanne Boucon (1708-1780), appuyée sur un clavecin
avec inscriptions ‘Pieces de Clavecin/ de/ Madame de Mondonville’
pastel sur papier marouflé sur toile et monté sur châssis
64 x 53 cm (25 1/8 x 20 7/8 in.)
Provenance
Collection Eudoxe Marcille (1814-1890) depuis 1860 jusque 1890.
Légué à Marie Françoise Eudoxie Marcille (1850-?), 1908.
Légué à Geneviève Jahan, épouse Chevrier (1875-1956) ; puis par descendance aux actuels propriétaires.
Literature
P. Lacroix, Annuaire des artistes et des amateurs, III, Paris, 1862, p. 135.
E. de & J. de Goncourt, ‘La Tour’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, I, 1867, p. 359.
E. de & J. de Goncourt, L'Art du XVIIIe siècle, Paris, 1880, I, pp. 280, 285, réed., 1881, I, pp. 402, 409.
H. Chennevières, ‘Silhouettes de Collectionneurs : M. Eudoxe Marcille’, La Gazette des Beaux-Arts, septembre-octobre 1890, p. 304.
Lady Emilia Dilke, French Painters of the XVIIIth Century, Londres, 1899, pp. 160, 161, 164.
F. Hellouin, ‘Mondonville, sa vie et ses œuvres’, Le Ménestrel, 5 octobre 1902, p. 317.
M. Tourneux, La Tour, Paris, 1904, pp. 52, 59, ill. p. 97.
T. Humphrey Ward & W. Roberts, Pictures in the collection of Pierpont Morgan at Princes Gate and Dover House, Londres, 1907, (mentionné par erreur ‘comme vendu à Pierpont Morgan’).
G. Brière et al., ‘Notes critiques sur les oeuvres [...] à l'Exposition des Cent pastels [...]’, Bulletin de la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, 1908, p. 230.
J. Guiffrey, ‘L'exposition des cent pastels’, Monatshefte für Kunstwissenschaft, I, n° 2, 1908, p. 640.
A. Jullien, ‘Revue musicale’, Journal des débats, 28 juin 1908, p. 1.
P.-A. Lemoisne, ‘Exposition de cent pastels et de bustes du XVIIIe siècle’, Les Arts, X, 1908, p. 24.
L. Roger-Milès, Maîtres du XVIIIe siècle. Cent pastels [...], Paris, 1908, p. 34.
A. Tessier, ‘Madame de Mondonville ou la dame qui a perdu son peintre’, La Revue musicale, 1 juillet 1926, ill. p. 8.
P. Ratouis de Limay, ‘L’exposition des pastels français du XVIIe et du XVIIIe siècle’, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XV, 1927, p. 330, ill.
A. Besnard, G. Wildenstein, La Tour, Paris, 1928, p. 349, fig. 73.
P. Ratouis de Limay, ‘Trois Collectionneurs du XIXe siècle : La Collection Marcille’, Le Dessin : Revue d'art, d’éducation, et d'enseignement, 1938, p. 312.
A. Bury, La Tour, the greatest pastel portraitist, Londres, 1971, pl. 55.
C. Debrie, X. Salmon, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour Paris, 2000, p. 217, note 44.
N. Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, Londres, 2006, p. 284, ill.
N. Jeffares, Pastels and Pastellists, publication en ligne, sous Maurice-Quentin de La Tour [pastellists.com/Misc/Jeffares_LaTour_2021ed.pdf, consulté en octobre 2021], p. 93, n° J.46.1427.
Exhibited
Paris, chez Francis Petit, Deuxième exposition d'amateurs, Paris, 1860, n° 28.
Paris, École nationale des Beaux-Arts, Dessins de l'école moderne, 1884, II, n° 435.
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Société des pastellistes français. Exposition retrospéctive, 1885, n° 31.
Paris, École des Beaux-Arts, Portraits de femmes et d'enfants, Société philanthropique, 1897, n° 222.
Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Cent pastels du XVIIIe siècle, 1908, n° 44, pl. 34.
Paris, Hôtel Jean Charpentier, Quentin de la Tour et des Pastellistes français des XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 1927, n° 19, pl. XXXIII-46.
Paris, Palais national des Arts, Chefs d'œuvre de l'art français, 1937, n° 184.
Post lot text
ATTRIBUTED TO MAURICE-QUENTIN DE LA TOUR PORTRAIT OF MADAME CASSANÉA DE MONDONVILLE, BORN ANNE-JEANNE BOUCON, PASTEL ON PAPER LAID DOWN ON CANVAS AND MOUNTED ON A STRETCHER
A celebrated harpsichordist and composer, Anne-Jean Boucon studied music with the acclaimed Jean-Philippe-Rameau (1683-1764), who wrote for his student a composition entitled ‘La Boucon’ in his 1741 Pièces de clavecin en concert. The composers Jacques Duphly, in 1744, and Jean Barrière in 1745 also created works for the young musician. At the age of thirty-nine, in 1747, she married Jean-Joseph de Cassanéa de Mondonville (1711-1772). Her husband, a composer and violinist of the chamber and royal chapel, much admired by Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour, also posed for a portrait by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour La Tour represented the sitter smiling, almost completely facing the viewer, with only the carved head, the pegs and the neck of his violin visible; the rest of the instrument is sketched and mostly hidden behind his torso. The pastel, exhibited at the Salon of 1747, is today known by a copy conserved in the collection of the Musée Antoine Lécuyer in Saint-Quentin (fig. 1; inv. LT 18; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.1414, ill.; and Debrie and Salmon, op. cit., 2000, p. 191, fig. 105).
La Tour was deeply involved in the world of theatre and music, and he represented many dancers, composers, and musicians belonging to both the realms of lyric theatre and of Italian music. One example of such a work is the portrait of Pietro Manelli, first jester of the Italian troupe, conserved in the Musée Antoine Lécuyer (inv. LT 20; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.2202; and Debrie and Salmon, op. cit., 2000, no. 48, ill.). Rarer are portraits of 18th Century female musicians depicted with their instruments, as the sitter is here in the present pastel.
Another version of this portrait is conserved at the Art Institute of Chicago (inv. 2001.53; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.1423, ill.; and Debrie and Salmon, op. cit., 2000, p. 216, under n°44). While the brilliant blue of her dress and the details of the lace appear more luminous in the Chicago version of the pastel, the execution of the face in the two compositions are of equal quality, and the delicate white highlights on the sitter’s cheeks in the Marcille version are a particularly expressive element. In both cases, it is worth noting that La Tour did not wish to depict the harpsichord keys realistically (the sharps and flats are not in the correct places), and the music score is not very legible. Instead, he wished to focus on the details and the exquisite execution of the sitter’s physiognomy.
A later copy that previously belonged to John Pierpont Morgan is at the Saint Louis Art Museum (inv. 308.1925; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.14275, ill.). The current whereabouts of the original version, the one exhibited at the Salon of 1753 (no. 76), are unknown (Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.1422).
The present version belonged to the pioneering French collector François Marcille. Like his two sons, Camille and Eudoxe, he possessed a number of pastel portraits by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, notably a preparatory study of a portrait of Chardin, later engraved by Jules de Goncourt and lent by Eudoxe to the 1879 exhibition at the École des Beaux-Arts (no. 529; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.1442). Four pastels by La Tour were included in the sale on 8-9 March 1876 of Camille Marcille’s collection following his death, one of which was a preparatory study for the portrait of the painter Dumont le Romain (lot 152; location unknown; Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.1685) and another a study for the portrait of the painter Louis de Silvestre (lot 150; now at the Art Institute of Chicago, inv. 1958.543; see Jeffares, op. cit., online version, no. J.46.2966, ill.)
Fig. 1 M.-Q. de La Tour, Portrait of J.-J. Cassanéa de Mondonville, pastel, Saint Quentin, Musée Antoine-Lécuyer.