Francois Hubert Drouais

François Hubert Drouais (Paris 1727–1775) Portrait of a Young Lady, traditionally identified as Princess Natalia Petrovna Galitzin, signed lower left: Drouais le Fils 176...., oil on canvas, 73 x 60.5 cm, in possibly original carved and gilded Louis XVI frame, crowned with a coronet We are grateful to Laurent Hugues who has identified the present work based on a photograph as an important new discovery of Drouais‘ oeuvre. It will be published in his forthcoming catalogue raisonné on François Hubert Drouais. Mr Hugues has also drawn attention to the possible Russian origin of the subject portrayed (written correspondence). Based on the signature, this portrait of a lady in travelling clothes, probably a Galitzin Princess, can be dated to 1767. Up to 1767, the year of his father‘s death, Drouais referred to himself as Drouais le Fils. As the son of the renowned portraitist Hubert Drouais, the artist received his early education from his father, and later from F. Boucher, C. J. Natoire and C. van Loo. Agréé since 1754, in 1758 Drouais was made a member of the Academy. Drouais was a favourite of the court and the higher nobility from an early age. He enjoyed the protection of the Marquise de Pompadour and later of Comtesse Dubarry, the most influential royal mistresses. His works, which are masterly in their depiction of materials and flesh tones, reflect the spirit of Louis XV’’’’s reign with their lightness and jaunty sprit. During the 1760s Drouais almost enjoyed a monopoly in his position as portraitist of Paris‘s elegant ladies. He repeatedly executed portraits of foreigners living in Paris. In 1761 Drouais painted the Russian ambassador Prince Dimitrij Galitzin. According to tradition and physiognomic comparison, the present work could be a portrait of Princess Natalja Galitzin, one of the ambassador‘s relatives. She was the daughter of Prince Pjotr Grigoryevich Chernyshov, an illegitimate son of Tsar Peter the Great, and married Prince Vladimir Borisovich Galitzin. She spent her youth with her cosmopolitan father and sister in Paris. In 1762 the family returned to Russia where the Princess became a court lady to Tsarina Catherine II, rising to become one of the best-known female intellectuals in the country. She served as the role model for Alexander Puschkin’’’’s narratives and was one of the most important members of the Tsarina’’’’s circle.

François Hubert Drouais (Paris 1727-1775) The children of the Duc de Bouillon dressed as Montagnards; one playing a Hurdy-Gurdy, the other playing with a marmot on a ribbon signed and dated 'Drouais le fils 1756' (lower center) oil on canvas 34 x 51½ in. (86.3 x 130.8 cm) Commissioned by the Duc de Bouillon, Paris, in 1755-1756. Madame Roussel, Paris; (+), Galerie George Petit, Paris, 25-28 March 1912, lot 4, where acquired by Schoeller Manheimer, Amsterdam. Anonymous sale; Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 27 May 1932, lot 19. Private collection, Belgium. Fritz Mannheimer, Amsterdam, by June 1934. Secured by the Dienststelle Muehlmann, The Hague, following the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, May 1940. Purchased from the above for the 'Sonderauftrag Linz', 1940; Transferred to the Munich Collecting Point by Western Allied Forces (inv. no. 1583), 29 June 1945; Returned to the Stichting Nederlands Kunstbezit, The Hague (inv. no. 487), 7 March 1946; Transferred to the Ministry of Education, Arts & Sciences and loaned to the Mauritshuis, The Hague (NK inv. no. 3118), from whom acquired by Rosenberg & Stiebel, New York, 1956. with Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 1976. British Rail Pension Fund; Sotheby's, New York, 30 January 1997, lot 100. Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, New York, 24 January 2008, lot 100, where acquired by the present owner. PROPERTY OF A GENTLEMAN C.F.P. Dorbec, 'Les Drouais,' La Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, XVII, January 1905, pp. 54-58. C. Gabillot, 'Les Trois Drouais', Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1905, pp. 177-194, 288-298, 384-400; 1906, pp. 155-174, 246-258, 388-389. L. Dumont-Wilden, Le portrait en France, Brussels, 1909, p. 180. A. Frapart, 'Les Grandes Ventes', Les Arts, April 1912, p. 13. I. Errera, Répertoire des pentures datées, Paris, 1920, I, p. 415. Beaux-Arts, 25 April 1932, IV, p. 8 Figaro illustré, September 1932, p. 456. Abridged Catalogue of the Pictures and Sculptures in the Royal Picture Gallery, The Hague, 1949, pp. vi and 21, no. 859. F.A. Braam, Art Treasures in the Benelux Countries, The Hague, 1958, I, p. 118, no. 1295. D. Diderot, Salons, eds. J. Seznec and J. Adhemar, 1957, 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 Colletion, Vol. II, Paintings, 1968, New York, pp. 87-90. A.P. de Mirimonde, 'Scènes de genres musicales de l'ecole française au XVIIIe siecle dans les collections publiques', La Revue du Louvre et des Musées de France, XVIII, 1968, no. 3, pp. 136-138. E. Munhall, 'Savoyards in French Eighteenth-Century Art', Apollo, LXXXVII, February 1968, pp. 86-94, fig. 9. D. Wakefield, French Eightenth-Century Painting, London, 1984, pp. 71, 171 (where mistakenly said to have been sold at Sotheby's, London, December 1978). A. Wintermute, The French Portrait 1550-1850, New York, 1996, p. 50. 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. London, Royal Academy of Arts, European Masters of the 18th Century; Winter Exhibition, 1954-1955, p. 36, no. 73. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, La Douce France, August-December 1964, no. 19. London, Royal Academy of Arts, France in the 18th Century, January-March 1968, p. 67, no. 208 (catalogue 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.D. Melini, in C.F.P. Dorbec, 'Les Drouais', La Revue de l'Art ancien et moderne, XVII, January 1905, p. 56. Son of a distinguished portrait painter and the talented pupil of Boucher, Natoire and Carle Vanloo, Drouais emerged as the court portraitist par excellence soon after his first Salon appearance in 1755. His glossy, highly finished manner, meticulous rendering of sumptuous costumes, and shameless flattery of his female sitters accorded with the aristocratic tastes of the era of Madame de Pompadour, and he eventually succeeded his chief rival, Jean-Marc Nattier as portraitist to the royal family. From the start, however, Drouais made something of a specialty of group portraits of the children of the nobility. In 1756, Drouais was called to Versailles to paint two of the sons of the Dauphin, and the resulting effort, The Comte de Provence and Duc de Berry as Children (Museu de Arte, Sao Paulo), a splendid double portrait of the opulently arrayed royal infants sitting in a garden, made a sensation when it was exhibited in 1757. Word of this success seemed to inspire, almost immediately, a succession of commissions for similar portrait groups. Drouais would also exhibit at the Salon of 1757 The Prince and Princess de Condé as Gardeners and The Prince de Guémè and Mademoiselle de Soubise as Grape-Gatherers (both, Rothschild collections), and the present double portrait of The Children of the Duc de Bouillon as Montagnards. The portrait of the comte de Provence and duc de Berry had been extravagant in the luxury of its fabrics and embroidery, but it nevertheless depicted its sitters in clothing appropriate to their position as the grandsons of Louis XV, whereas the portraits that followed - as indicated by their titles - dressed their noble sitters in pastoral guises, as shepherds, farm hands, and 'exotic' types, a novelty that Drouais introduced as his reputation grew. The present painting depicts the ten-year-old Jacques-Léopold-Charles Godefroy, Prince de Boullion (born 1746) and his younger brother, seven-year-old Charles-Louis Godefroy, Prince d'Auvergne (born 1749) dressed in the costumes of Montagnards, as specified in the Salon livret. Montagnards, or Savoyards - the terms are interchangeable - were rural laborers who, every desolate winter, left the mountain regions of their native Savoy to migrate to large cities in France, Italy and Germany, where they worked as chimney sweeps, knife-grinders, shoe-shine boys, or street entertainers, as the duc de Bouillon's sons are pretending to be in Drouais's portrait. Over one half of the male population of the Savoy mountains came to Paris every year, with boys starting the journey at about eight years old. Once in Paris, most lived in their own communities, their primary concern being to send money back to their families; in the warm weather they returned home to tend their farms. The regional costumes worn by the Montagnards were distinctive, as was their overall appearance: three-quarter length, coarse brown coats; a slightly disheveled look; and shoulder-length hair topped off with a tricorne hat. Drouais, naturally, dressed his young noblemen in rich brown velvet coats, with crisp white lines shirts and (saggy) silk stockings, their hair brushed and powdered, their faces clean and porcelain white. He did not fail to include the attributes that made Savoyard street performers recognizable to one and all: the Prince de Bouillon makes music on a hurdy-gurdy while the Prince d'Auvergne tugs at a blue ribbon to make his trained marmot dance; the little boy sits atop the marmot's wooden carrying box from which some of the animal's straw litter sticks out. Considered models of filial affection because of their annual pilgrimage to earn money for their families, Savoyards became a preferred masquerade for Drouais' portraits déguisés; indeed, the following year he portrayed the young Le Comte and Chevalier de Choiseul as Savoyards (1758; The Frick Collection, New York) and showed this grand portrait at the Salon of 1759. The success of these paintings attests to the fashionable affectation of les grands to espouse the virtues of the simple rustic life, which would reach its zenith in the 'petit hameau' of Marie-Antoinette. Drouais's exquisite technique is in full evidence in the present painting, his chalky brush and soft and flatteringly suffused lighting, but he also conveys a convincing and touching filial affection between the brothers that he does not always otherwise achieve. The way their heads gently touch, the happy excitement of the little boy as he gets his marmot dancing, the tender and protective expression of the older boy as he accompanies them on his instrument convey a vivid sense of contentment and affection that is heartening and strangely poignant. As Diderot observed, 'Drouais paints children well; he infuses their eyes with life, transparency, a moist richness, swimming so that they seem to gaze and smile at you at the same time.'

LOT 236 PROPERTY FROM THE ESTATE OF MARK SAYERS FRANÇOIS HUBERT DROUAIS PARIS 1727 - 1775 PORTRAIT OF A YOUNG WOMAN signed Drouais le... (center left) oval, oil on canvas 10,000—15,000 USD 28 3/4 by 23 7/8 in.; 73 by 60.5 cm. signed Drouais le... (center left) oval, oil on canvas Anonymous sale, Tajan, France, 25 June 1996, lot 54 (sold for$25,108).

François-Hubert Drouais (Paris 1727-1775) Portrait of the Chevalier de Turenne, half-length signed and dated 'Drouais. 1772' (lower left) oil on canvas, oval 27¾ x 23 in. (70.5 x 58.4 cm.) I confirm that I have read this Important Notice and agree to itsterms. George McFadden (1873-1931), New York; + sale, 20-21 October1944, lot 269. Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago, French Paintings,Tapestries and Furniture of the Eighteenth Century, 2-16 December1919, no. 44.

LOT 76 PROPERTY OF A FAMILY FRANÇOIS HUBERT DROUAIS PARIS 1727 - 1775 MARIE-JEAN HÉRAULT DE SÉCHELLES AS A CHILD 80,000—120,000 USD measurements measurements note 27 1/2 by 22 in.; 60 by 56 cm. Description signed and dated lower left: drouais le fils 1763 oval, oil on canvas PROVENANCE Duchesse de Crillon, 1861;Dr. Magin, Paris, by 1913;His sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 23 June 1922, lot 14, toWildenstein for 97,000 francs;With Wildenstein and Company, Paris (according to inscription in1922 sale catalogue);Paul Dutasta, Paris, by 1926;His sale, Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, 4 June 1926, lot 62;Ernst Rosenfeld, New York, by 1928, until at least 1942;Charles Dunlop, New York, by 1975;His posthumous sale, New York, Sotheby Parke Bernet, 4 December1975, lot 377, to a member of the present family. EXHIBITED Berlin, Königliche Akadamie, 1910, no. 35;London, Burlington Fine Arts Club, Pictures and Drawings of theFrench School of the 18th Century, 1914, no. 38;New York, Jacques Seiligmann & Co. Inc., ExhibitionIllustrating The Work of Fifteen Masters of the Eighteenth Century,27 November-15 December 1928 (lent by Ernst Rosenfeld);New York, Parke-Bernet Galleries, French and English Art Treasuresof the Eighteenth Century, 20-30 December 1942, no. 13 (lent by theEstate of Ernst Rosenfeld). LITERATURE AND REFERENCES P. Lacroix, Annuaire des artistes et des amateurs, Paris 1861,p. 126. CATALOGUE NOTE This charming portrait depicts Marie-Jean Hérault de Séchelles(20 September 1759 – 5 April 1794), an identification recordedsince at least 1922, and perhaps originally recognized from aninscription on the lining canvas. Though shown here at age four,Hérault would grow up to eventually become a well known andinfluential politician, and ardent proponent of the FrenchRevolution. Born to a noble family in 1759, he studied law, and atthe age of twenty was appointed legal advisor to Louis XVI, thanksto the intervention of his mother, the Duchesse de Polignac, aclose friend of Marie Antoinette. As an intellectual famed for hiseloquence, he would eventually shift his political allegiances tothe far left, and was elected president of the National Conventionmultiple times. Hérault aligned himself with early leaders of theRevolution such as Georges Danton and was eventually guillotinedwith him and others of Danton's group in the Tuileries in April1794. Just a year prior, Jean-Louis Laneuville exhibited a portraitof Hérault in the Paris Salon (fig.1). That picture was sold, NewYork, Sotheby's, 19 May 1995, lot 136 and is now in the collectionof the Musée Carnavalet, Paris. In addition to his various roles inthe highest ranks of the changing governments in Paris, he wrote,among other books, Visite à Buffon, Èloge Thérie de l'ambition. Forfurther details about the life of Hérault de Séchelles, see PierreLarousse, Grand Dictionnaire Universel, vol. IX, p. 203. This portrait is known in at least two copies, one, soldAnonymous sale, New York, Christie's, 17 October 2006, lot 308,incorrectly lists early provenance and exhibition history which infact pertains to the present work.