The “America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” Exhibit (Washington D.C., U.S.A.)

 

The "America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting" Exhibit

The “America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting” Exhibition, opened last May 21, 2017 at the National Gallery of Art, West Building, is the first and an unprecedented survey of American taste for the exquisite collection of eighteenth-century French painting brought over by JosephBonaparte, elder brother of Napoleon, when he arrived in the United States in 1815.

Joseph Bonaparte's American Exile

 In an effort to spread his native country's culture across the United States, he placed them on public view.  The works caused a sensation and a new American fascination and taste for French art was born.

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Children of the Marquis de Bethune Playing With a Dog (Francois-Hubert Drouais, 1761, oil on canvas, Collection of the Birmingham Museum of Art, Eugenia Woodward Hitt Collection)

Over the decades, appreciation of French eighteenth-century art has fluctuated between preference for the alluring decorative canvases of Rococo artists such as François Boucher and Jean Honoré Fragonard to admiration for the sober Neo-Classicism of portraits championed by  Jacques-Louis David and his pupils.

 

Madame de Flesselles (Jean-Marc Nattier, 1747, oil on canvas,
Princeton University Art Museum, New Jersey)

The selection emphasizes works by less familiar names, women artists (such as Élisabeth Louise Vigée LeBrun), and one of the earliest mixed-race artists in the Western canon (Guillaume Guillon-Lethière).  It also explores various themes (from fêtes galantes to the art of the Age of Enlightenment) popular with late 19th- and early 20th-century American collectors and how those genres continue to be acquired today.

 

Bacchanal (Charles Joseph Natoire, 1747, oil on canvas, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston).  Didier Aaron, Inc., New York purchase the painting at Christie's London and the museum bought it for US$84,2200

The exhibition presents 68 of the finest examples and most unusual examples of French art of that era found in American museums in 24 states and Washington D.C. today.  It tells the story, on a national stage, of the collectors, curators, museum directors, and dealers responsible for bringing the paintings from diverse locations across the Atlantic and the United States (from Pittsburgh and Indianapolis to Birmingham and Phoenix) and into the collections they now call home.

 

Fountain of Venus (Francois Boucher, 1756, oil on canvas).  It was acquired
by the Cleveland Museum of Art from P. and D. Colnaghi, London

The exhibit divided into eight sections, each focusing on a different category of American taste, ends on August 20, 2017. The exhibition was organized by Yuriko Jackall, the assistant curator, Department of French Paintings, National Gallery of Art.

 

The Bath of Venus (Francois Boucher, 1751, oil on canvas, National
Gallery of Art,Washington D.C., Chester Dale Collection)

The first section is Romantic Rococo, the vision of France that appealed most to Americans in the 19th century. On view are works from the collection of Madame de Pompadour (Jeanne Antoinette Poisson), a mistress to Louis XV. She commissioned lush paintings by François Boucher and Jean-Baptiste Greuze among others.  

The Toilette of Venus (Francois Boucher, 1751, oil on canvas, lent by the
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Bequest of William K. Vanderbilt)

They include Boucher's luxurious portrait of Madame de Pompadour as well as his The Toilette of Venus from the Metropolitan Museum of Art and The Bath of Venus from the National Gallery of Art, originally painted in 1751 as pendants for her bathroom at the Château de Bellevue and reunited for the first time since the 18th century.

 

The Abduction of Europa (Noel-Nicolas Coypel), 1726-1727, oil on canvas,
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Pennsylvania)

Sensual Century: The Pursuit of Love, the next section, focuses on depictions of love which, despite their varied subjects and settings, were consistently popular among American viewers. Jean Honoré Fragonard's painted sketch for part of his Progress of Love ensemble, a series originally created for the pleasure pavilion of Madame du Barry, another mistress of Louis XV, is on loan from the Frick Art & Historical Center in Pittsburgh .

 

"Sensual Century: The Pursuit of Love."  At left is ""An Interior with a Lady, Her Maid, and a Gentleman" (Louis Rolland Trinquesse, 1776, oil on canvas, Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut)

Other works on display include Noël Nicolas Coypel's Abduction of Europa (1726–1727) from the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which was a parting gift from JosephBonaparte to his friend, the American general ThomasCadwalader, and Louis Rolland Trinquesse's An Interior with a Lady, Her Maid, and a Gentleman (1776) from the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut. 

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"Opulent Century: Portraits of Affluence." L-R: Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, Wife of Barthelemy Jean ClaudePupil (Nicolas de Largillierre, 1729, oil on canvas, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California) and Portrait of Barthelemy Jean Claude Pupul (Nicolas de Largilliere, 1729, oil on canvas, Timken Museum of Art, San Diego, California)

Opulent Century: Portraits of Affluence, the exhibition's next grouping, features opulent portraits of the period's courtiers, pageboys, housewives and financiers. In these paintings, the ornateness of the dress and surroundings offered American collectors a window into the lavish French lifestyle. 

Pygmalion and Galatea (Louis Jean Francois Lagrenee, 1781, oil on
canvas, Detroit Institute of Arts Museum, Michigan)

Nicolas de Largillierre's Portrait of Marguerite de Sève, Wife of Barthélemy Jean Claude Pupil (1729), from the Timken Museum of Art in San Diego (California), had been passed down through generations descended from Desmaisons, an architect to Louis XVI.  In 1905, it was purchased by DavidDavid-Weill, a French-American financier, and then acquired by the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in 1944 through Wildenstein and Co., Inc., a gallery responsible for bringing many of the paintings on view to American audiences.

 

Portrait of Jacques-Francois Desmaison (Jacques-Louis David, oil on canvas,
Collection of the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York)

Also on display is Jacques-Louis David's Portrait of Jacques François Desmaisons (1782) from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. Another lesser known gem is Marie Marie-Victoire Lemoine's Portrait of a Youth in an Embroidered Vest (1785) from the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens in Jacksonville, Florida.

 

Earth: Vertumnus and Pomona (Francois Boucher, 1749, oil on canvas,
Columbus Museum of Art, Ohio)

The next grouping explores both playful and fanciful sides of the era through paintings such as AntoineWatteau's Perfect Accord (1719) from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Also on view is JosephDucreux's Le Discret (c. 1791), a little-known self-portrait which was the first work by this artist (a court painter to Marie-Antoinette) to enter an American collection when it was acquired by the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in 1951.

 

The Comte and Chevalier de Choiseul as Savoyards
(Francois-Hubert Drouais)

A section on masquerade features Francois-Hubert Drouais's Portrait of Carlos Fernando Fitz James-Stuart, Marquess of Jamaica (1765), from the Birmingham Museum of Art (Alabama). Long considered a portrait of Madame du Barry in costume, recent research revealed the actual subject to be a young Spanish nobleman.

 

Self Portrait (Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, c. 1781, oil on canvas,
Kimball Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas)

Inspired Century: Artists and Art Academies focuses on artists trained at the French Royal Academy. Élisabeth Louise Vigée LeBrun, accepted into the prestigious institution thanks to the support of Marie-Antoinette, has two works on display here - The Artist's Brother (1773), from the Saint Louis Art Museum, Missouri, and Self-Portrait (c. 1781) from the Kimbell Art Museum  in Forth Worth, Texas.  

"Inspired Century: Artists and Art Academies." At center is "Sleep" (Jean Bernard Restout, c. 1771, oil on canvas, The Cleveland Museum of Art)

Girl with Portfolio (c. 1799), a portrait by Guillaume Guillon-Lethière, one of the few mixed-race artists to find success at the French academy, is on loan from the Worcester Art Museum (Massachusetts).

 

Oedipus at Colonus (Jean-Antoine Théodore Giroust, 1788, oil on canvas,
Dallas Museum of Art, Texas) 

The exhibition closes with two somber themes of interest to Americans. First are Neo-Classical paintings of Greek heroes such as Jean-Francois Pierre Peyron's Death of Alcestis (1794) from the North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, and Jean-Antoine Théodore Giroust's Oedipus at Colonus (1788) from the Dallas Museum of Art.

 

Death of Alcestis (Pierre Peyron, 1794, oil on canvas, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh).  Colnaghi, New York purchased the painting at Sotheby's Monaco

Finally, Enlightened Century: Science, Nature and the Passage of Time documents nature or the passage of time during the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment. HubertRobert's Octavian Gate and Fish Market (1784), an architectural fantasy, is now believed to be the prime version of a similar composition at the Musée du Louvre, Paris. 

The Octavian Gate and Fish Market (Hubert Robert, 1784, oil on
wood panel, Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center, Vassar College)

One of the earliest 18th-century works to come to America, it was owned in the late 19th century by Henderson Green of Hyde Park, New York and is now in the collection of the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center at Vassar College in Poughkeepsie, New York.

 

Corner of Monsieur de la Bruyère’s Garden (Jean-Baptiste Oudry, 1744, oil on canvas,
Detroit Institute of Arts, Michigan)

America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting: National Gallery of Art, West Building, Main Floor, Northeast Galleries, Constitution Ave. NW, Washington, D.C..  Tel: +1 202-842-6511.  Website: www.nga.gov. Admission is free.