Laclotte Michel Musee Du Louvre Paintings Compressed

MICHEL LACLOTTE
chief curator of paintings department
MUSEE
DU LOUVRE
PAINTINGS FLAMMARION
MICHEL LACLOTTE
chief curator of paintings department
MUSEE
DU LOUVRE
PAINTINGS FLAMMARION
197°, flammarion, Paris. Printed in France.
A number of the world's great art museums — such as Dresden and
the Hermitage, the Prado and the Florentine galleries, and the
museums of Munich and Vienna —have inherited the core of their
collections from nobility and royalty. Others, established in the
xixth and xxth centuries — the former Kaiser Friedrich Museum
in Berlin for example, the London National Gallery, the New York
Metropolitan Museum and, more recently, the Washington National
Gallery — have been built up gradually as the result of private
donations and reasonably consistent purchase policies. Yet the
Louvre belongs to neither category, or rather to both. In fact it
originated as a royal collection, the collection of the French royal
family, which means that it possesses works of rare lustre, the sort
of irreplaceable masterpieces infrequent in museums of xixth cen-
tury foundation. But, like its juniors, it has received and purchased
some thousands of pictures during this and the last century. This
is why the Louvre, with its greater financial resources and, most
important, the sustained generosity of private benefactors, offers a

collection richer and more comprehensive than that of any other
museum of royal origin.
Jean CLOUET
(painter to the King
from 1J16-IJ40I1J41)
Francois I
0,96 X 0,74
THE COLLECTION
OF THE FRENCH
ROYAL FAMILY
The true founder of the Crown Collection was Francois I. Several
of his predecessors had certainly commissioned and acquired pain-
tings, as the Portrait of Jean le Bon or Fouquet's Charles VII— both
having a much chequered history before their acquisition by the
Louvre — go to prove. But the credit for assembling a collection
of easel pictures for the sake of pleasure and example, as well as
for their prestige value, must belong to Francois I. He managed
to lure the most famous artist of the period, Leonardo da Vinci,
formerly a protege of Louis XII, to France in 1 5 16, thereby ensuring
possession of Several works by him, including La Gioconda, St. Anne,
St. John the Baptist and almost certainly the Virgin of the Rocks. To
this peerless foursome, perhaps the most precious of all the Louvre's
possessions, he added paintings by other distinguished Italian
artists, including Charity by Andrea del Sarto, who went to France
in 1 5 18, the full-length Holy Family\ St. Michael, Joan of Aragon and
possibly La Belle Jardiniere by Raphael, and Sebastiano del Piombo's
Visitation. He also commissioned Titian to paint his portrait.
The collection was housed in the newly-construted chateau of
Fontainebleau, decorated by Rosso and Primaticcio, where it remain-
ed until the xvnth century, by which time the Court had ceased
to be in continuous residence. The Picture Room was never-
theless kept up, visited, admired and came to be looked on as a
sort of "museum". Although Francois I's immediate successors did
nothing to enlarge it with fresh Italian masterpieces, like many
noblemen of the period they built up collections of portraits, both
drawings and paintings, from numerous series by the Clouets,
Corneille de Lyon and their imitators. Only isolated examples of
such portraits survive in the Louvre today, and these are of extre-
mely complicated provenance. Similarly only a fraction of the
decorative canvases designed for the chateau of Saint-Germain-en-
Laye and only one of the portraits commissioned by Henri IV for
the Petite Galerie of the Louvre, that of Marie de' Medici by Pourbus,
have been preserved. Henri IV was more interested in building and
decorating the Louvre and other residences, thereby encouraging
activity in other artistic spheres, than in expanding the Picture Room.
Apparently neither his widow, the same Marie de' Medici, nor his
son Louis XIII paid much attention to it either, but at least they
invited artists of European-wide reputation to adorn their palaces
with all possible splendour: Gentileschi, Rubens, Vouet and Poussin.
Although nothing remains of Poussin's decor for the Grande
Galerie of the Louvre, a number of the Allegories painted by Vouet
for Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Gentileschi' s Public Felicity and of course
Ruben's lavish series of paintings exalting the virtues of Marie de'
Medici, executed between 1623 and 1625 for the Palais du Luxem-
bourg, finally came to rest in the Louvre beside other paintings of
the Royal Collection during the Revolution and in 1 8 1 5 respectively.
Richelieu, an acquisitive and shrewd connoisseur of art, is known
to have accumulated many old and contemporary masters in his
Paris and provincial residences. Those housed in the Palais Cardinal
in Paris were bequeathed to the king in 1642, and so Veronese's
Pilgrims at Hmmaeus entered the Royal Collection and Leonardo da
Vinci's St. Anne, parted with in the course of the xvith century,
was returned to it. Other paintings belonging to the Cardinal, in
particular those from the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este (by Mantegna,
Perugino and Costa), also found their way into the Louvre at the
time of the Revolution when the Richelieu collections were confis-
cated from the family chateau in Poitou.
The Royal Collection was even more appreciably enlarged when
Louis XIV, on the advice of Colbert, acquired part of the collection
assembled with passionate care by the deceased Cardinal Mazarin,
who had striven —
and not only in matters of art — to emulate
his wily predecessor. The Correggios in the Louvre, three of the
Raphaels (Balthasar Castiglione and the smaller St. George and
St. Michael), Titian's Venus of Pardo, several Caraccis and Guido's
David came from this source. Such acquisitions were a brilliant
prelude to Louis XIV's vocation as a collector. He thereafter
purchased, commissioned or received endless paintings which, with
those brought from the Picture Room at Fontainebleau to the
Louvre, were destined to adorn the apartments of Versailles and
other royal residences.
The most impressive acquisition, made in several stages, of
Louis XIV's early personal reign was the collection of drawings
(forming the nucleus of the collection in the Cabinet des Dessins of
the Louvre) belonging to the banker and art lover Jabach, who
also bequeathed the Concert Champetre attributed to Giorgione,
Carravaggio's Death of the Virgin, five Titians, several works by
Veronese and all the Holbeins in the Louvre. Many of Jabach's
paintings, and a number of Mazarin's too, originally belonged to
Hyacinthe RIGAUD
(i6j9-i 74 3)
Louis XIV
2,79 x 1,90
the famous collection of Charles I, unquestionably the finest collec-
tion of paintings assembled in Europe during the first half of the
xvnth century, which was sold by the British government in about
1650. The majority of Italian masters it contained, acquired by
Charles I in 1627, had formed part of the fabulous collection
belonging to the House of Gonzaga in Mantua.
Louis XIV's acquisition of French masters was also extensive ;
naturally he purchased or commissioned easel pictures from his

official painter Le Brun and his collaborators — Mignard, and later,
Coypel, the Boullogne brothers and La Fosse — as well as requiring
them to enhance his prestige or merely to adorn the walls and
ceilings of his palaces. But he also saw that certain French painters
of preceding generations were introduced into the Royal Collection.
In 1665, in one neat move, he bought the due de Richelieu's thirteen
Poussins and two Lorrains. With subsequent additions his collection
of paintings by these two old masters eventually numbered thirty-
two Poussins and eleven Claude Lorrains. His admiration for these
two great French Classical masters, which many contemporary art
lovers shared, is perhaps less surprising than the fact that a third
artist, Valentin, a French painter of the Roman School, was just as
highly esteemed by Louis XIV, who displayed several paintings by
him in his chamber at Versailles.
When Bailly, the keeper of the collection, drew up an Inventory of
the King's Pictures in 1709 and 1710, he listed, in addition to academic
copies and working drawings from the studios of Le Brun and
Mignard, a total of 1,478 paintings, 930 of which were French,
369 Italian and a sizeable 179 by artists of the Northern School.
Voltaire's apocryphal anecdote about Louis XIV brushing aside a
Teniers from his apartments ("Get those maggots out of here!") is
complacently overquoted. In fact Flemish painting was respectably
represented in Louis XIV's collection. In 1681 fourteen van Dycks
are mentioned as being in the Louvre. It must be remembered
that with the rise of the "colour" faction as opposed to the Poussin
faction, or Poussinistes, Rubens came back into favour with critics,
artists and connoisseurs, which explains why we hear of Roger de
Piles "unearthing the merit of Rubens". Several paintings by the
Flemish master in the Louvre today were acquired on behalf of
Louis XIV, namely the Virgin of the Innocents and that superb por-
trayal of revelry in Village Fair. Toward 1671 Rembrandt made a
personal appearance in the Picture Room with his Self-portrait of
1 66 1. However, the triumph of the "Rubenistes" in the late
xvnth century was more spectacular in city circles than at Court.
Works of the Northern School in the Royal Collection remained
powerfully dominated by the great Italian masters, from Leonardo to
the Bolognese, and by the French Classical masters. Is it forbidden
to think that this fondness reflects an innate and consistent bias of
French taste?
Unfortunately Louis XIV's acquisitive flair was poorly matched by
Louis XV. At a time when other members of the royal family, the
Regent for example, and financiers like Crozat were accumulating
prestigious collections in the best eclectic taste, and auctions and
the art market in general were beginning to boom, the King and his
advisers were either unaware or did not take advantage of the sort
of opportunities swiftly seized by the King of Prussia for example,
or by the Elector of Saxony, English collectors, and later Catherine
the Great.
The only important purchase of old masters during the reign of
Louis XV was a lot of twenty pictures selected by Rigaud from the
sale of the Prince de Carignan's collection in 1742, which included
Rembrandt's Raphael Leaving Tobias, two Rubens, Raphael's Virgin
in the Blue Veil and some xvnth century Italian masters.
Yet the records of purchases and commissions from living artists
during the reign are more substantial. Confining ourselves to the
pictures housed in the Louvre — many of which remain, the rest
having been relocated either at Versailles or Fontainebleau — we
can definitely say that several Bouchers, a number of important
Chardins, Lancrets, Desportes, Carle van Loos, Vernets and certain
royal portraits were acquired for the Royal Collection, although
the exclusion of Watteau seems an unforgettable oversight...
When we come to Louis XVI or, more precisely, to the comte
d'Angiviller, appointed Director of Buildings in 1774, we find
a remarkable updating of the government's "cultural policy".
D'Angiviller set himself a three-pronged objective: to encourage
the arts, to enlarge the Crown Collection, and lastly to make it
accessible to the public. Looking at the Louvre today it is difficult
to imagine the effect of the first point of his programme. With rare
exceptions, which fortunately include the key work in the series
by David, the Oath of the Horatii, the antique and historical composi-
tions commissioned or purchased by d'Angiviller in order to promote
the renaissance of painting in the heroic and monumental Grand
Style were dispersed and sent to provincial museums. It is in such
galleries that the finest, but sadly neglected, examples of this genre
of French painting are to be found.
It is much easier to appreciate the efforts of the Director of Buildings
in enlarging the collection of old masters by means of a methodical
buying policy. Imbued with the spirit of his Encyclopedist contem-
poraries d'Angiviller concentrated on filling the gaps and repairing
the oversights. He completed the French series by purchasing
Le Nain's Forge, three cycles by Le Sueur formerly in the Hotel
Lambert and Charterhouse of Paris, and works by Subleyras. He
made it his especial business, with the help of agents all over Europe,
to assemble a substantial collection of paintings of the Northern
School. Many of the Louvre's masterpieces — Helene Fourment by
Rubens, Charles I by van Dyck, the Evangelists by Jordaens, the
Pilgrims at FLmmaeus by Rembrandt, Sunburst by Ruisdael, the
Military Gallant by Ter Borch — were acquired by d'Angiviller.
Another noteworthy purchase was Murillo's Beggar Boy in 1782,
an outstanding model of the Spanish School, scantily represented
previously by several princely portraits from the atelier of Velasquez
and the Burning Bush by Collantes.
D'Angiviller's encyclopedic outlook corresponded with his ambi-
tion to offer the public the widest possible view of European
painting. In fact, by the middle of the xvnith century the Crown
Collection ceased to be reserved solely for the delectation of the
Court. Indeed the pictures which comprised the Royal Collection
were so tricky to visit during the first part of the reign of Louis XV,
scattered as they were in courtiers' homes, packed away in store or
otherwise virtually neglected, that it took a serious protest campaign
to bring about the presentation of a selection of pictures from the
Crown Collections in the Palais du Luxembourg in 1750, ostensibly
a temporary exhibition, but such an immediate success that it lasted
until 1779. Meanwhile a more ambitious scheme, clearly outlined
by Diderot in his Encyclopedie as early as 1765, was envisaged: the
Crown Collections were to be permanently accommodated in the
Palais du Louvre and made accessible to the general public.
D'Angiviller wholeheartedly endorsed the project: his portrait by
Duplessis shows him proudly pointing to a plan of the Grande
Galerie in the Louvre, the future repository of the Museum. Pro-
bably he was over scrupulous in his research or over hesitant about
adopting the proposals for lighting, decoration and other amenities
put forward by various "museological" coteries, because the opening
of the Louvre Museum, postponed year after year while its trustees
chafed impatiently, was not destined to take place during his term
of office.
THE MUSEUM CENTRAL

DES ARTS
AND THE MUSEE NAPOLEON
Despite the turmoils of the Revolution the grand scheme was not
abandoned. In 1791 it was decided that the Louvre should be
appropriated as a national monument to the arts and sciences
and the Royal Collections, thereafter the property of the nation,
transported there the following year. On August 10th, 1793 the
"Museum central des Arts", with 537 pictures and works of art
on display opened in the Grande Galerie. But the premises were
dilapidated and the presentation left much to be desired in spite of
the endeavours of the Museum Commission, and so the Gallery,
although successful, had to be closed in 1796. Several paintings by
Hubert Robert, formerly a member of the research team organised
by d'Angiviller in 1784, illustrate different aspects, either authentic
or imaginary, of the Gallery during this period and after its official
re-opening in 1799 and 1801.
In the interim the Museum's collections multiplied on a massive
scale. The original core, the former cabinet du roi^ was expanded by
the collections of such obsolete official bodies as the former Academie,
by paintings chosen from the confiscated collections of emigre
aristocrats or those stockpiled in the Couvent des Petits-Augustins
following the seizure of Church property. The Academie collections
which comprised the portraits and reception pieces of its academi-
cians were particularly wide-ranging, but only a fraction of their
number is preserved in the Louvre today (the remainder being
divided between the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, the Musee de Versailles
and several provincial museums) including Watteau's Embarkation
Hubert ROBERT (1733-1808). The Grande Galerie of the Louvre, o,}j X 0,46.
for Cythera and Chardin's Raj and Buffet. The works which successive
curators of the Museum requisitioned from the warehouses where
the collections belonging to the nation and those confiscated from
emigres had accumulated, were certainly numerous, but restricted
by certain esthetic inhibitions —hence the commissioners' wilful
disregard for the pre-xvuth century French masters and the indecent
frivolities of the reign of Louis XVth —
and also by the fact that
only part of the total stock was available to the Museum, the
balance having to be sold. The Louvre nevertheless managed to
obtain such masterly works as van Eyck's Virgin of Autun and
Rembrandt's St. Matthew, a number of attractive pictures from
Dutch and Flemish collections, some xvnth century French reli-
gious paintings of outstanding merit, and two distinguished
"series", namely those paintings originally in the Studiolo of
Isabella d'Este (obtained from the Richelieu family), those from
the Galerie de la Vrilliere in the Hotel de Toulouse, Guardi's
Venetian Festivals,
Thus began an adventure which, for a few years at least, made the
Louvre the most stupendous gallery of all time: works of art dis-
cerningly selected from the booty of French victories in Belgium,
Holland, Italy, Germany and Austria flooded into the Museum. An
adventure much debated certainly and perhaps not totally irre-
prehensible by present day international moral standards, but in
its day considered a glorious feat. Symbol of Revolutionary conquest,
the Louvre became the repository for the works of art of all Europe.
It would be wrong though to condemn such an enterprise out of
hand and regard it simply as the manifestation of the pillaging
mentality of conquering armies the world over. In fact the organiser
of the Musee Napoleon, the name given to the Louvre after 1803,
probably dreamed of creating an art sanctuary accessible to all the
citizens of imperial Europe, a shrine which would promote mankind's
intellectual progress. The Museum's director at the time was
Vivant-Denon, a remarkable man with an Encyclopedist back-
ground; he wanted the collections in the Musee Napoleon to reflect
as wide-angled an image of the history of painting as possible. It
was with this aim im mind that he visited Italy in 181 1 with the
intention of acquiring either by purchase, requisition or exchange
a number of "primitives" unappreciated previously and only just
beginning to be re-discovered by a few pioneers such as Seroux
d'Agincourt.
It is worth noting that the high concentration of works of art in
the Musee Napoleon prompted such cities as Milan and Venice to
assemble art collections, certainly less awe-inspiring but more
permanent, and encouraged the foundation, beneficial in the long
run, of museums in most centres throughout Europe. On the
other hand, as further proof of the educational and uplifting role
which the government of Consular and Imperial France conferred
on the work of art, new museums were created from scratch in
fifteen towns (including Geneva, Brussels, and Mainz) by drawing
on the accumulated reserves of the Louvre, the former Royal
Collections included.
In 1 8 14 the Musee Napoleon, re-christened the Musee Royal, was a
respected institution; the circumstances of its prosperity went
practically uncriticised. But the tables were turned in 1 8 1 5
. Envoys
were dispatched to Paris by every power in Europe to reclaim the
"plundered" works of art, much to the despair of Vivant-Denon,
whom the government conveniently disowned. And so more
than five thousand works of art left the Louvre. The only pictures
to escape such reprisals were those which had been sent to the
provinces and a meagre hundred in the Louvre itself, including the
Florentine altarpieces (Cimabue, Giotto, Fra Angelico, Filippo Lippi)
acquired by Denon in 181 1 which the Florentine envoys preferred
to leave behind, and also Veronese's Wedding at Canaa which was
exchanged for a canvas by Le Brun.
10
THE LOUVRE IN THE XIXTH CENTURY
After that terrible year of 1815 the Louvre looked very desolate.
In order to line the picture rails, short of recovering the painting
sent to provincial museums (or else allocated to various churches)
and even abroad (Brussels, Geneva, Mainz) during its hour of
splendid abundance, the Museum reclaimed Vernet's Ports de France
series, the Chartreux series by Le Sueur and Rubens' series of
Marie de' Medici from the Luxembourg.
Few old masters were purchased during the Restoration, with the
exception of some fine works by Jordaens, Greuze, Rubens and
Perugino. On the brighter side, however, an active policy for the
purchase of contemporary works, which received the encourage-
ment of the comte de Forbin, the Director of Museums, was res-
ponsible for the acquisition of Gericault's Raft of the Medusa,
David's Madame Kecamier, Sabine Women and Leonidas, and Delacroix'
Dante and Virgil crossing the Styx and The Massacre of Chios. The
Musee du Luxembourg, founded in 1818 and thereafter intended as
a showcase for living artists, became the waiting-room, so to speak,
of the Louvre.
Although fairly lethargic under the Restoration, the activity of the
Paintings Department under the July Monarchy was minimal;
virtually no donations were received or purchases made apart from
the Carrying of the Cross by Simone Martini, the Carondelet Diptych
by Gossaert and two works by Fouquet. Fortunately the Luxembourg
continued its acquisition of works by living artists, which eventually
acceded to the Louvre. Otherwise Louis-Philippe concentrated on
establishing the history museum at Versailles and on amassing a
collection of Spanish paintings, an exceptional ensemble which was
displayed in the Louvre for a few years then followed him into
exile, an irreconcilable loss for France and one still felt.
The Second Empire, which inherited the driving enthusiasm
generated by the Republic of 1848, gave new incentive to the Louvre,
and to the Paintings Department in particular. The premises were
extended and well-lit galleries were constructed which provided
better display conditions. Methods of classification and presentation
were thoroughly reviewed under the direction of the Curator of
Paintings at that time, F. Villot, who drew up an excellent inventory
of each collection*. These were further expanded by a wide range of
intelligent acquisitions. Worth mentioning here are the Cuirassier
and the Officer of the Light by Gericault, the Flayed Ox by Rembrandt,
the Waterwheel by Hobbema and Lace Maker by Vermeer, a set of
panels by Memlinc, II Condottiere by Antonello da Messina, Chardin's
Purvejoress, a series of Murillos and Zurbararis and even several
"French primitives".
The two most substantial additions to the Louvre's collection of
old masters in the xixth century occurred during the reign of
* The numbers go up to 10,000 and refer to all the paintings in the national collections, including
paintings purchased for the Musee de Versailles. At that time the Louvre itself possessed something
over 5,000 pictures.
II
Napoleon III, namely the purchase of the Campana collection and
the La Caze bequest. We know that the collection of the Marquis de
Campana, acquired in Rome, was displayed at the 1863 Paris
Exposition in the Palais de l'lndustrie and that on this occasion it
was credited to the "Musee Napoleon III". It therefore seems the
height of absurdity that a decision should have been taken in the
same year to dismantle this unique collection of over 650 pictures.
More than 300, the majority of them Italian xivth and xvth century
masters, were scattered throughout the provincial museums; the
Louvre itself received only 3 1 3 of which two thirds were dispersed
in their turn throughout France shortly after the fall of the Second
Empire in 1870. At present we envisage redressing such blunders
by reassembling all those paintings scattered in 1863 and 1870 in one
special museum in Avignon. As far as the Louvre is concerned the
addition of a hundred panels by Italian masters of the Trecento
and Quattrocento, amongst them several masterpieces by Tura and
Uccello, was particularly gratifying, because these periods in Italian
painting had previously been most inadequately represented.
The bequest of Docteur La Caze in 1869 is undoubtedly the finest
donation received by the Louvre in its entire history; it com-
prised 500 paintings, amongst them Watteau's Gilles Fragonard's
y
Baigneuses, Franz Hals' Gypsy Woman and Rembrandt's Baths heba,

Man with a Clubbed Foot by Ribera, the Meal by Le Nain and a
number of incomparable sketches by Rubens. Thanks to the dis-
crimination and generosity of this great connoisseur some parti-
cularly embarrassing gaps in the French xvinth century, long deplored
by art lovers, were filled and the Flemish and Dutch series specta-
cularly enhanced by works of the finest quality.
During the early Third Republic the collections in the Louvre were
re-catalogued. The works of Delacroix and Ingres were transferred
to the Louvre from the Luxembourg and in 1872 and 1876 the
reception pieces from the old Academie were sent to the Ecole des
Beaux-Arts or to the provincial museums, an exodus from the
Louvre totalling some 1,700 pictures, many selected and dispatched
in too much haste.
This re-organisation was an ideal opportunity to assess the lacunae in
the department of xixth century French painting. A few judicious pur-
chases, but in the main a succession of donations of some exceptional
single works (such as Courbet's Burial at Ornans, given by Juliette
Courbet, and Millet's Women Gleaning, given by Mme Pommery)
as well as entire collections (Thomy-Thiery in 1902, Chauchard in
1909, Moreau-Nelaton, the finest donation of all perhaps, and
on several occasions Arthur Chasseriau) gradually made up the
deficiencies. Works by Corot, Millet, Chasseriau, Rousseau, Courbet
and the Barbizon School, and also a great number of Gericaults,
Ingres and Delacroix found their way into the Louvre as a result.
At the same time the reprobate Impressionist contingent at last
began to invade the national collections, once again due to private
generosity, this time on the part of Caillebotte, Moreau-Nelaton,
Camondo and others. This brief survey does not extend to the
12
Impressionist works displayed in the Louvre in the Jeu de Paume,
these being dealt with elsewhere.
Parallel to the Louvre's exertions on behalf of xixth century French
painting, which finally resulted in the purchase of the Turkish Bath,
Sardanapalus and the Atelier immediately before and after the 1914-
191 8 war, efforts were also made to add to the collection of old
masters, and so Pisanello's Princess came to be purchased in 1893,
El Greco's Christ in 1908, Poussin's Poet's Inspiration in 191 1,
Bellini's Christ in 191 2, a van der Weyden triptych in 191 3 and
Le Nain's Peasant Family in 1914 — to mention only a few illustrious
examples. With the support of several collectors the Louvre also
set about forming an English collection, and in 1904, at a time
when the French Primitives were in great vogue, also acquired
(with the assistance of the Society of Friends of the Louvre) the
Pieta of Villeneuve-les- Avignon and St. Magdelena by the Master of
Moulins, and the Boulbon Altarpiece.
During this period several sections of the Paintings Department
were enhanced by numerous donations, the most outstanding being
the Arconati-Victoni and Schlichting (19 14) collections.
THE LOUVRE DURING THE XXTH CENTURY

The funds Louvre's disposal between about 1880 and 1914,
at the
a period which sawParis become the centre of the art market, made
possible several sensational purchases, though these were fewer
than those effected in Berlin. After the First World War however
these resources dwindled, but the Louvre was still in a position to
buy Diirer's Self-portrait in 1922, although in the face of competition
from American collectors and museums — and in all fairness their
activitieshave tended to paralyse museums in Europe — it was
forced to rely increasingly on private generosity, on the support of

the Society of Friends of the Louvre and, as far as purchases were
concerned, on the wisdom of the National Museums Council and
on the ingenuity of individual curators. In fact the latter, especially
after 1930, frequently concentrated on unearthing and opportunely
acquiring works against market trends, in other words on purchasing
works before they appeared on the fashionable market where they
could command soaring prices. Paintings by Georges de la Tour
for example and works of the Realist School of painters discovered
at the Orangerie in 1934, and others by Niccolo dell' Abbate and
the masters of the Fontainebleau School were acquired in such cir-
cumstances. The aim of all the museum's curators has always been
to give the best possible idea of the long and complicated history of
French painting, which is continually being enriched by the disco-
very of new works or subtly modified by new facts coming to light.
Even during the last war, when its collections were sent to the
provinces for security, the Louvre continued to expand. It received
the fine collection of its former Curator of Paintings, Paul Jamot,
J
3
and also the collection of Carlos de Beistegui, subject to usufruct
during his lifetime, which entered the museum after his death in
195 3; it included works beyond compare, such as La Solatia by Goya,
David's Bonaparte, portraits by the Master of Moulins, Ingres and
Fragonard. France was still under German occupation when
Le Brun's Chancellor Seguier was purchased and Chardin's Young
Draughtsman donated by Mme Sommier.
The finest works to enter the Louvre since 1947 were displayed at
an exhibition in the Orangerie in 1967, which demonstrated the
exceptional steadfastness, practically unexampled in the rest of
Europe, of individual French and foreign generosity towards the
Louvre. Besides substantial additions to its collection of Impres-
sionists, the Louvre received new masterpieces by Corot and Daumier
(presented by Laroche and Gourgaud), La Tour (P. M. Turner)
and van Dyck (Rothschild), Rembrandt and Fragonard (Pereire),
Gainsborough (Groult and Rothschild) as well as a rare and impor-
tant xvnth century Spanish work by Carrefio de Miranda (Caraman).
Lastly, a consistent purchase policy which has received the full
backing of the Society of Friends of the Louvre has enabled successive
curators to develop certain sections of French painting further still,
notably the primitives (Beaumetz, LiefTrinxe), xvith century por-
traiture and xvnth century Realism; to introduce certain foreign
masters previously absent from the Louvre's collections (Sassetta,
Sittow, Ter Brugghen, Wolf Huber); to enlarge the Spanish (Huguet,
Herrera, Murillo) and English collections (Constable, Turner)
already existing thanks to private benefactors; in short to carry out
the encyclopedic programme once pursued by d'Angiviller and
Vivant-Denon, for it is entirely owing to such a programme that
the Louvre, after five centuries of history, has become the most
comprehensive museum of paintings in the world.
The Grande Galerie in 1968.

the plates
Anonymous French painter
(mid-xivth century)
PORTRAIT OF JEAN II LE BON, KING OF FRANCE

Wood. 55 x 34 cms. (22 x 15 1/4 ins.)
Inscription: Jehan Roy de France
On trust from the Bibliotheque Nationale, 1925. R.F. 2490
This portrait of Jean le Bon ( 1 319-1364), dated about 13JJ, is not only believed to be
the oldest known easel picture in the history of French painting but also the first example
since Antiquity of an individual painted portrait. The author is thought to have been
Girard d' Or leans, painter and manservant to Jean II. The picture probably belonged to
a series of portraits housed in 1380 in the Hotel Saint-Pol, the residence of Charles V,
depicting Jean II, Charles V, the TLmperor Charles IV
and TLdward III of England. It
passed from the collection of Roger de Gaignieres into the Library of Louis in 171 7. XV
FRENCH SCHOOL
7
Attributed to Jean Malouel

(Painter to the due de Bourgogne from 1 397-141 5)
PIETA OF OUR LORD, or GRANDE PIETA RONDE

Wood. Diameter 52 cms. (20 3/4 ins.)
On the reverse: coat of arms of Philippe the Bold, due de Bourgogne

Acquired in 1864. M.I. 692
Most historians agree that this painting, executed towards 1400 for Philippe the Bold,
due de Bourgogne (1363-1404), is the work of Jean Malouel, a native of Gueldre and
the uncle of the Limbourg Malouel worked in Paris for Queen Ysabeau of Bavaria
brothers.
before becoming painter to the due de Bourgogne in 1 397, an appointment in which he
succeeded Jean de Beaumet^ (whose Calvary, painted for Champmol Charterhouse, is in
the Louvre) and preceded Henri Bellechose (author of the Saint-Denis Altarpiece, 1416,
also in the Louvre).
FRENCH SCHOOL - 1
•'
Jean Fouquet
(Tours, c. 1420-Tours, c. 1480)
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES VII, KING OF FRANCE

Wood. 85 X 70 cms. (34 X 28 ins.)
Inscription on the frame:

EE TRES VICTOKIEVX KOI DE FRANCE. CHARLES. SEPTIESME. DE CE NOM.
(His Most Victorious Majesty Charles, King of France, seventh of that name.)
Acquired in 1838. Inv. 9106
This portrait of Charles VII ( 1403-1461) by Fouquet, which entered the Louvre in 1838
with the strange attribution "By an anonymous Greek painter", was probably the portrait
discovered in ijjy during the demolition of the Sainte-Chapelle at Bourges, the church to
which Charles VII donated it originally. It might once have been a pendant to another
portrait, since destroyed, of Marie d'A.njou, Charles VIFs queen.
The inscription has been interpreted either as referring to the victory of Formigny (14/0),
or to the re-conquest of Guyenne (14/3) or Truce of Tours (1444). If the
else to the
9
last supposition is correct, then the portrait might have been painted before Fouquet s
departure for Italy in about 144 J.
18 FRENCH SCHOOL
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Attributed to Enguerrand Quarto n

(painter from the diocese of Laon, active in Provence between 1444 and 1466)
PIETA OF VILLENEUVE-LES-AVIGNON
Wood. 63 X 218 cms. (25 1/2 x 87 1/2 ins.)
Acquired by the Friends of the Louvre in 1905. R.F. 1569
This painting, the most renowned of the French XV

'th century series, was acquired shortly
after the "French Primitives" exhibition of 1904, which brought to light its exceptional
importance. The Pieta originally came from a church at V'illeneuve-les- Avignon, probably
the Charterhouse. Many as to its date and author.
conflicting theories exist But today
most historians accept that a work of the Avignon School executed in the mid-XVth cen-
it is
tury. Its specific attribution by Charles Sterling to Enguerrand Quarton, author of the
Crowning of the Virgin (14/4) also at Vllleneuve-les- Avignon, seems perfectly
feasible.
FRENCH SCHOOL 19
Master of Moulins (Jean Hey, known as)
(active 1480?- 1500?)
ST. MAGDELENA AND A BENEFACTRESS

(Wood. 55 X 39 cms. 22 x 16 3/4 ins.)
Acquired in 1904. R.F. 15 21
This panel originally formed the left volet of a diptych or triptych. The identification of
the benefactress, depicted facing her patron saint, as Madeleine de Laage, the natural
daughter of Philippe le Bon, due de Bourgogne, enables us to date the picture between 1490
and 149 J, the last date being the date of Madeleine de Laage' s death. Other pictures
in theLouvre by the same master (portrait of Charles Or land, Pierre, Anne and Suzanne de
Bourbon facing Saints Peter and John) belong to the same period as the Master of Moulins,
now identified as Jean Hey, a painter of Flemish origin active in France and the signatory
of the Ecce Homo (1494) in the Brussels Museum.
This work, which passed from the Laage family into the Louvre via a succession of collec-
tions in Wur^burg, London and Brussels during the XlXth century, was once attributed
to van Eyck.
20 - FRENCH SCHOOL
^M
Francois Clouet
(Tours, c. 1516/1520-Paris, 1572)
PORTRAIT OF PIERRE QUTHE (1562)

Wood. 91 X 70. cms. (36 1/2 x 28 ins.)
Signed: FK. JANETTI OPUS. PE QUTTIO, AMICO, SINGVLARI, AETATIS SUE. XLIII. 1562.
Acquired in 1908 by the Friends of the Louvre, by courtesy of E. Moreau-Nelaton. R.F. 17 19
Pierre Quthe (ijiy-after ijS8), a Parisian apothecary and Francois Clouet'*s friend
and neighbour, was renowned for his garden of simples, to which the herbarium depicted
by the artist alludes. This is one of the rare works actually signed by Francois Clouet,
the others being the Portrait of Charles IX in Vienna and the Woman bathing in
Washington, and dates from the end of his career; he succeeded his father Jean as Painter
to the King in IJ41.
FRENCH SCHOOL 21
Master of the Fontainebleau School
(c. 1550)
DIANA THE HUNTRESS

Canvas. 192 x 133 cms. (76 1/2 X 53 1/4 ins.)
This likeness, painted towards ijjo, is generally recognised as an idealised portrait of

Diane de Poitiers, duchesse de Valentinois and mistress of Henri II ( 1 499-1 j66). It
was primarily due to the King's influence that the Diana theme recurs so frequently in the
painting, sculpture and tapestry work of the masters of the Fontainebleau School. The
picture in the Louvre, which probably came from the chateau at Fontainebleau, was widened
by some six inches on either side during the XVII th or XVIIIth century. It is sometimes
attributed to Tuca Penni, one of the Italian painters working at Fontainebleau, who died
in Paris in 1 jj6.
ZZ - FRENCH SCHOOL
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Simon Vouet
(Paris, 1590-Paris, 1649)
WEALTH
Canvas. 170 X 124 cms. (68 X 49 1/2 ins)
Royal Collections. Inv. 8500
This Victory or allegory on Wealth, an excellent example of Vouefs style during the
most prosperous years of his career in Paris, probably -comes from a decorative series
he painted towards 1640 for Louis XIII in the royal apartments at the chateau of
Saint-Germain-en-Laye. Two other pictures in the Louvre, Victory and Faith, appear
to be of the same origin, as does another Victory in the John Her ron Art Institute in
Indianapolis.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 23
Georges de La Tour
(Vic-sur-Seille, 1593-Luneville, 1652)
ST. JOSEPH THE CARPENTER

Canvas. 137 X 102 cms. (54 3/4 X 40 3/4 ins.)
Given by Percy Moore Turner, 1948. R.F. 1948.27
Like the Adoration of the Shepherds, also in the Louvre, this painting is generally
thought to date from the latter half of the artist's career , that is after 1640, although the
chronology of his work as a whole remains obscure. However, the composition reveals a
profound understanding of Carravaggesque themes, with which La Tour familiarised
himself either in Rome — although it is not altogether certain that he visited Italy — or
through the intermediary of Dutch imitators of Carravaggio such as Honthorst, who
also painted a St. Joseph the Carpenter with the Child (Convent of San Silvestro,
Montecompatri) and in a style similar to La Tour's.
24 FRENCH SCHOOL
Louis Le Nain
(Laon, 1593-Paris, 1648)
PEASANT FAMILY
Canvas. 113 X 159 cms. (45 1/4 X 63 3/4 ins.)
Acquired in 191 5. R.F. 2081
Ever since P. Jamot works of the three Le Nain

established the distinction between the
brothers, Antoine, Louis and Mathieu, has been accepted as one of the most
this picture
accomplished creations of Louis. It is one of his rare peasant scenes of relatively large
dimensions (see also his Peasant Meal of 1642, equally renowned, bequeathed to the Louvre
by Docteur La Caê) Peasant Family is probably of the same period as Peasant Meal.
.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 2 5
Louis Le Nain
(Laon, 1593-Paris, 1648)
THE BLACKSMITH'S FAMILY

Canvas. 69 X 57 cms. (27 3/4 x 22 1/2 ins.)
Acquired for the collection of Louis XVI in 1777. Inv. 683
This picture, the first by Le Nain to enter the Louvre, belonged successively to the due de
Choiseul and the prince de Conti. Critics unanimously attribute it to Louis Le Nain.
Reims Museum possesses a painting similar in composition, Venus in the Forge of
Vulcan ( 1 6 41), which appears to be the result of collaboration between Louis and Mathieu.
Some historians suggest that these two blacksmith scenes reflect Le Nain's admiration
for Velasque^ Forge of Vulcan, painted in Rome in 1629, which now hangs in the Prado.
>6 - FRENCH SCHOOL

j
Baugin
(Lubin? Pithiviers, c. 1610-Paris, 1663)
THE DESSERT OF WAFER-BISCUITS

Wood. 41 x 52 cms. (16 1/4 X 20 3/4 ins.)
Signed: BAVGIN
Acquired in 1954. R.F. 1954-23
There are four still-life studies by Baugin in existence (Louvre, Muse'e de Rennes, Galleria
Spada inRome) which demonstrate their author's subtlety as a still-life painter when
compared, say, with J. Linard, L. MoilIon or S. Stoskopff. The Dessert is the finest
example of Baugin's work. These still-lifes possibly represent Lubin Baugin's early
work (he was nicknamed Little Guido and was active in Paris during the 1630-163
period) because he abandoned this genre and altered his style after a visit to Italy around
,
1636, and concentrated on religious and mythological themes; this hypothesis is not, however,
universally accepted.
FRENCH SCHOOL - Z~f

Nicolas Poussin
(Les Andelys, 1594-Rome, 1665)
THE POET'S INSPIRATION

Canvas. 182 x 213 cms. (72 3/4 X 85 1/4 ins.)
This picture is the only Poussin in the Louvre, apart from Apollo and Daphne and
Self-portrait, which did not originally belong to the Royal Collection, although once owned
by Cardinal Maârin. It portrays an epic poet, perhaps Virgil, receiving inspiration
from Apollo and the Muse Calliope. Although generally regarded as Poussin' s earliest
purely Classical work, there are numerous conflicting opinions as to its date: about 1628-
1 629 according to some critics; of the same period as the Martyrdom of St. Erasmus
in the Vatican and the Virgin at the Pillar in the Louvre ( 1631-1632); others put it
towards the end of his Roman period, as late as 1638-16)9. The first hypothesis seems
the most plausible.
28 - FRENCH SCHOOL
9
Nicolas Poussin
(Les Andelys, 1594-Rome, 1665)
THE SUMMER OF RUTH AND BOAZ

Canvas. 118 x 160 cms. (47 1/4 X 64 ins.)
Acquired for the collection of Louis XIV in 1665. Inv. 7304
Poussin' s Four Seasons, painted between 1660 and 1664 for the due de Richelieu and
acquired by Louis XIV in the year ofthe artist's death, are considered to be his artistic
testament. It has been suggested that as well as depicting the physical aspects of nature
in each season the series also symbolises, by reason
of the biblical themes of each individual
work, the main stages of Man's destiny: Spring (Paradise on Earth) symbolises Man
before the Ten Commandments, Summer (Ruth and Boa%) Man under Old Testament
law, Autumn (the Fruit of the Promised Land) Man after the advent of Christianity,
and Winter (the Flood) Man at the Last Judgement before the Day of Redemption.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 2
Eustache Le Sueur
THE MUSES MELPOMENE, ERATO AND POLYHYMNIA

Wood. 130 x 13c cms. (53 X 53 ins.)
This composition was the fifth of a set of panels depicting the Muses which adorned the
"Chambre des Muses" at the Hotel Lambert. Le Sueur executed these decorations
between 164J and 1648, at the same time as the ceiling (Apollo and Phaeton) in the
Louvre. Le Sueur was also responsible for other paintings in the Hotel Lambert (espe-
cially those in the Cabinet de r Amour), which was constructed on the He Saint-Louis
by Le Vaux for President Lambert de Thorigny. The panels in the Cabinet des Muses
and the Cabinet de r Amour and also Le Sueur's St. Bruno series were acquired for the
Royal Collection in ijy6 on the initiative of the comte d'Angiviller.
30 FRENCH SCHOOL
Claude Lorrain (Claude Gellee, known as)
(Chamagne, 1600-Rome, 1682)
CLEOPATRA DISEMBARKING AT TARSUS (1642)

Canvas. Original dimensions: 117 X 147 cms. (46 3/4 X 58 3/4 ins.)
Signed: Claud...
Acquired for the collection of Louis XIV before 1683. Inv. 4716
This picture was a pendant to David Annointed King by Samuel, also in the Louvre,
and was probably painted for Cardinal Angelo Giorio. A
drawing executed by the artist
for his Liber Veritatis (No. 63 British Museum) bears a mention which enables
Cleopatra to be dated 1642. The painting was enlarged (the present framing hides this
area) in 169 j in order to suit display in the Grand Trianon.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 3 I
Philippe de Champaigne
(Brussels, 1602-Paris, 1672)
THE EX-VOTO OF 1662

Canvas. 165 X 229 cms. (66 X 91 3/4 ins.)
Signed and dated 1662
Museum Central, 1793. Inv. 11 38
This picture, Philippe de Champaigne''s finest work, was executed between January 22nd
and June 1 jth in the year 1662 as a votive offering for the miraculous healing of his daughter
Catherine, a nun in the Convent of Port-Royal in Paris. She was stricken with paralysis
of both legs but made a complete recovery thanks to the prayers of the community. Cham-
paigne chose to depict the scene on January 6th, 1662 when Mother Agnes Arnauld,
Abbess of Port-Royal, experienced the revelation of Catherine's imminent recovery as she
knelt praying by her bedside.
The picture was presented to Port-Royal by the artist himself; it left the Convent during
the Jansenist persecutions but returned in 1723.
32 FRENCH SCHOOL
Charles Le Brun
THE CHANCELLOR SEGUIER

Canvas. 295 x 351 cms. (118 X 140 1/4 ins.)
Acquired in 1942 by courtesy of the Friends of the Louvre. R.F. 1942.3
Pierre Siguier (ij88-i6j2), Chancellor of France, was one of Le Brunts first and most
generous patrons and made it possible for him to reside in Italy from 1642 until 164s.
In this portrait, the setting of which is exceptional, Le Brun shows the Chancellor in his
robes of office. Lie no doubt wished, as J. Thuillier has suggested, to extol the Lord Chan-
cellor's lofty rank rather than, as other historians have assumed, record a specific event
in the Chancellor s life, such as his taking part in Louis XI Vs
triumphal entry into
Paris in 1660. i6jj-i6jj seems an appropriate date for the execution of this picture.
FRENCH SCHOOL 33
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Nicolas de Largilliere
PORTRAIT PRESUMED TO BE OF THE ARTIST,

HIS WIFE AND DAUGHTER
Canvas. 149 X 200 cms. (59 3/4 X 80 ins.)
La Caze Collection, bequeathed in 1869. M.I. 1085
This is traditionally supposed to be a portrait of the artist with his family, a formal
portrait despite the rustic setting, in ivhich Largilliere depicts himself in hunting dress
(as did Desportes in his Self-portrait, also in the Louvre) pursuing that most noble
sport in the company of his wife (daughter of the landscape painter Forest and niece of
Charles de la Fosse) and probably his eldest daughter, Elisabeth- Marguerite who appears ,
to be singing a romance, a social accomplishment of the period. To judge by the apparent

age of Largilliere and the two women —
always supposing of course that the picture is
indeed of the artist and his family —
the work was probably painted around i/ij, and
is one of the artist's finest pieces.
34 FRENCH SCHOOL
Antoine Watteau
(Valenciennes, 1684-Nogent-sur-Marne, 1721)
THE EMBARKATION FOR CYTHERA (1717)

Canvas. 128 X 193 cms. (51 1/2 x 77 3/4 ins.)
Part of the Academie Royale Collection, acquired by the Louvre in 1795. Inv. 8525
Although made an associate of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 17 12,

Watteau did not become an academician until August 28th, 1717, the date of presentation
of the Embarkation for Cythera. The theme of Cythera, synonymous with the
Isle of 'Love, occurs in several XVIIIth century ballets and operas, notably in a comedy
written by Dancourt in 1700 entitled Les Trois Cousines. Watteau had already treated
the same theme in a painting executed in about 17 10 (at present in a private Paris collec-
tion). At the request of his friend Jean de Julienne he repeated the theme in a more sober ,
detailed vein in his "Morceau de Reception" de 1717, purchased by Frederick II

and now part of the collection of Prince Louis Ferdinand of Prussia in the Schloss
Charlottenburg.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 3 5
Antoine Watteau
(Valenciennes, 1684-Nogent-sur-Marne, 1721)
GILLES
Canvas. 184 x 149 cms. (73 3/4 X 59 3/4 ins)
La Caze Collection, bequeathed in 1869. MX 1121
Several hypotheses exist as to the precise subject and purpose of this painting by Watteau
which has an exceptionally expansive and monumental quality: was it intended as publicity
for the new theatre at the Saint-Laurent Fair of 1721, for the "parades" penned by
Gueullette for the enjoyment of the fairgoers, or for the cafe opened by the ex-actor Belloni
in 171 8? In whichever case, critics are unanimous in stressing the symbolic and personal
content (some even regard Gilles as a disguised self-portrait) of this idealised portrayal
of the clown Pierrot. Much to the disgust so the story goes, of the painter David, Vivant-
,
Denon rescued it from the window of an art dealer's where it had stood neglected for several
years during the First Empire.
36 - FRENCH SCHOOL
Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin
THE PURVEYORESS (1739)

Canvas. 47 X 37 cms. (18 3/4 X 14 3/4 ins.)
Signed: Chardin, 1739

From 1737 onwards Chardin painted a series of small family scenes depicting episodes
in everyday life. These were so popular that the artist reproduced several of them, which
explains why the Louvre possesses two original versions of the Grace. The Purveyoress
demonstrates a refinement and simplicity which make it superior to variants in Berlin
(dated 1738) and Toronto (dated 1739). From 1742 onwards the Purveyoress became
popular as an engraving by Lepicie and was accompanied by the quotation:
" Avoire air festime et je pense
Ma chere enfant sans calculer
Que vous prene% sur la depense
"
Ce qu'il faut pour vous habiller !...
The apartment shown might well have been that of the artist in the rue du Four,
in the picture
as described in an inventory of 1737.
FRENCH SCHOOL 37
Francois Boucher
LE DEJEUNER DU MATIN (1739)

Canvas. 81 x 65 cms. (32 1/4 x 26 ins.)
Signed: /. Boucher 17)9

Bequeathed by Docteur Malecot, 1894. R.F. 926
This intimate, homely scene, rather rare in Boucher's work (engraved in 1744 by
N. Lepicie, usually Chardin's interpreter) depicts the painter's twenty-six-year-old wife
and her two 17 3 /, and Jus tee-Nathan,
eldest children, Jeanne-Elisabeth-Victoire, born in
born in 1736. The setting, a priceless example of a Rococo interior, was undoubtedly the
painter's own home in the rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. Several preliminary sketches for
this work, exist, amongst them a fine study for the young man serving chocolate, now in
the possession of the Art Institute of Chicago.
3> FRENCH SCHOOL

Honore Fragonard
(Grasse, 1732-Paris, 1806)
LES BAIGNEUSES
Canvas. 64 X 81 cms. (25 3/4 x 32 1/4 ins.)
This work, which demonstrates Fragonard' s debt to Boucher, his teacher, and to Rubens
(it is reminiscent of the Nereids in Rubens' Marie de' Medici Disembarking at Marseilles,
also in the Louvre), is generally thought to date from the period following the artist's first
visit to Italy( ijj6-ij6i) .// appeared at various Paris auctions (in 1776, 1777 and
1779) and eventually passed into the collection of Docteur La Caê, which already included
Fragonard' s four Figures of Fantasy, Storm and three others of his compositions, and
was bequeathed to the Louvre with the rest of the La Ca%e Collection in 1869.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 39
Jean-Baptiste Perronneau
(Paris, 1715-Amsterdam, 1783)
PORTRAIT OF THE LADY OF SORQUAINVILLE (1749)

Canvas. 101 X 81 cms. (40 1/4 x 32 1/4 ins.)
Signed: Perroneau f. 1749

Given by M. and Mme David-W eill, 1937. R.F. 1937-8
The original inscription on the back of the frame, which reads: Dame de Sorquainville,
is our only means of identifying the sitter in this portrait perhaps the most delicate of
',
all Perroneau' s portraits in oils. According to Mme

Adhemar the sitter might have
been the wife of Salomon Couture, Lord of Chamacourt and Sorquainville and Counsellor
to the Parlement of Rouen.
40 - FRENCH SCHOOL
«3
Jean-Baptiste Greuze
(Tournus, 1725-Paris, 1805)
THE BROKEN PITCHER

Oval canvas, no X 85 cms. (44 X 34 ins.)
Museum Central, 1793. ^ nv> 5°3^
The history of this picture is rather obscure: there are known to have been two original
versions of this composition, one belonging to the marquis de Verri, the other to the
comtesse du Barry, but it is not known which one is the version in the Louvre. We know
for certain, however, that the Broken Pitcher was exhibited by Greuze in his Louvre
studio in October 7777 after the closing of the Salon and that it was much admired,
especially by the Emperor Joseph II, then visiting Paris incognito as Count Falkenstein.
During the XlXth century the picture became one of the most popular in the Louvre.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 41
Louis David
(Paris, 1748-Brussels, 1825)
ANNOINTING OF THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON I

AND THE EMPRESS JOSEPHINE
IN THE CATHEDRAL OF NOTRE-DAME DE PARIS (December 2nd, 1804)
Canvas. 610 x 931 cms. (244 x 372 ins.)
Signed: David febat. i8oj et 1807
Part of the Imperial Collections, acquired by the Louvre in 18 9. Inv. 3699
This picture, commissioned by Napoleon was painted by David between i8oj and 1807
I,
in the church of C limy in Paris, converted into a studio for the purpose, and was a resounding
success when it was exhibited at the Salon of 1808. Durign the First Empire it hung
in the Guard Room at the Tuileries Palace, but was returned to the artist in 181 4. In
1820 it was procured by the government; Louis-Philippe had it placed in the chateau of
Versailles in a gallery devoted to relics of the Empire; here it hung beside Gros* Battle of
Aboukir and opposite the Distribution of Eagles, painted by David in 1810. An
original replica of the Annointing, commenced by David in 1808 and finished in 1822,
was acquired by the French national museums in 1947 to take the place of the original
version which had been moved to the Louvre in 1889.
41 FRENCH SCHOOL
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Antoine Gros
(Paris, 1771-Meudon, 1835)
BONAPARTE VISITING VICTIMS OF THE PLAGUE IN JAFFA

(March nth, 1799)
Canvas. 532 x 720 cms. (212 x 288 ins.)
Signed: Gros, 1804, a Versailles

Musee Napoleon. Inv. 5064
Gros executed this enormous composition, extolling Bonaparte' s courage during his Syrian
campaign, within a few months of its commission in 1804 in his studio in the feu de Paume
at Versailles. Its exhibition at the Salon the same year was an unqualified triumph.
What is perhaps more striking in this composition than in some of his later large-scale
works, such as The Battlefield at Eylau (1808), also in the Louvre, the Battle of
Aboukir and the Battle of the Pyramids at Versailles, is Gros' pre-Romantic use of
colour and his naturalistic epic power. There also exist two working sketches for this
composition, one of them belonging to a private collection, the other, accepted by Bonaparte
himself, to theMusee Conde at Chantilly.
44 - FRENCH SCHOOL
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Jean-Dominique Ingres
(Montauban, 1780-Paris, 1867)
PORTRAIT OF M. BERTIN (1832)

Canvas. 116 x 96 cms. (46 1/4 X 38 1/4 ins.)
Signed: /. Ingres pinxit, 1832

Acquired in 1897. R.F. 1071
Louis-Franfois her tin (1766-1841), journalist politician and businessman, was the
',
Journal des Debats, organ of the liberal middle classes from 1830 onwards.
director of the
Several drawings show that Ingres tried various different poses before deciding on the pose
which has since become famous both for its expressiveness and because it represents a social
type, the wealthy middle class Parisian of the 1830s. The portrait created a strong
impression at the Salon of 1 8)y, many viewers admired it though few undestood it.
46 FRENCH SCHOOL
Jean-Dominique Ingres
(Montauban, 1780-Paris, 1867)
THE TURKISH BATH (1862)

Canvas on wood. Diameter: 108 cms. (43 1/2 ins.)
Signed: /. Ingres pinxt MDCCCLXII, Aetatis LXXXII (aged 82)
Given by the Society of Friends of the Louvre in 19 11 by courtesy of D. David- Weill R.F.
This work is the final expression of Ingres* lifelong preoccupation with the sensual
Baigneuse theme, and was painted when he was eighty-two. The hack view of the figure
in the foreground had already appeared, for instance, in the Baigneuse Valpincon of
1808 and in the Petite Baigneuse of 1828, both in the Louvre. The Turkish Bath,
inspired no doubt by Lady Worthy Montague 's accounts of Las tern harems in her famous
Letters, was originally square. It was sold to "Prince Napoleon in 18 j<?, but returned
to Ingres' studio the following year. He then reworked it to its present form, finishing
it in 1862. It was not exhibited to the public, however, until the Ingres Retrospective
organised at the Salon of 190 j.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 47
Theodore Gericault
(Rouen, 1791-Paris, 1824)
THE RAFT OF THE MEDUSA

Canvas. 491 X 716 cms. (196 X 286 ins.)
This is Gericault'''s reconstruction of an event which caused a public scandal under the
Restoration: of the 149 souls aboard the frigate Medusa who took to the life-raft when
she foundered in July 1816, only fifteen survived long enough to be rescued. The composition,
based on information painstakingly collected from the survivors and worked up from sketches
and preliminary paintings (two of which are in the Louvre) was exhibited at the Salon of
1819 and was received with unprecedented furore\ Yet the State made no offer to purchase,
and Gericault, bitterly disappointed, took the painting to TLngland where it was exhibited
in 1820 and 1821. Shortly afterwards, however, in fact in the same year as his premature
death, Gericault' s masterpiece entered the national collections thanks to the comte de Forbin,
then Directeur des muse'es royaux.
48 - FRENCH SCHOOL
","
t&^r
Eugene Delacroix
(Charenton-Saint-Maurice, 1798-Paris 1863)
SCENE FROM THE MASSACRE OF CHIOS (1824)

Canvas. 417 X 354 cms. (166 1/2 x 141 ins.)
Signed: Eug. Delacroix
Acquired in 1824 for the Musee Royal du Luxembourg, entered the Louvre in 1874. Inv.
Ever since 18 21 Delacroix had been ambitions to portray the Greek War of Independence,
and the Turkish massacre of the 20,000 inhabitants of the island of Chios in 1822 provided
him with a particularly tragic episode on which to base that portrayal. The work, begun
in January 1824, was on view at the Salon of the same year but was generally misinterpreted,
as his Dante and Virgil had been when it was displayed at the Salon of 1822 and as his
Death of Sardanapalus was destined to be in 1828. In spite of the critics, (faced with
this shattering proof of the spirit of Romanticism, which he himself had helped to prepare,
Gros is supposed to have said: "It's the massacre of painting!") the Massacre of Chios
was bought by the State on its release from the Salon.
5° FRENCH SCHOOL
Eugene Delacroix
(Charenton-Saint-Maurice, 1798-Paris, 1863)
LIBERTY GUIDING THE PEOPLE (1830)

Canvas. 260 X 325 cms. (104 X 130 ins.)
Signed: Eug. Delacroix 1830

Acquired in 1831 for the Musee Royal du Luxembourg, entered the Louvre in 1874. R.F. 129
Delacroix began this painting, inspired by the July Days of 1830, in the autumn of the
same year. "Tve undertaken a modern subject, a barricade" he wrote to his brother, "'and
even if I haven't conquered for the country, I can at least paint for her...". Although
exhibited at the Salon of 18 31, when it was purchased by the State, the work was considered
altogether too subversive and inspiring to be re-exhibited after its brief showing at the
Luxembourg. Except during several weeks in 1848 the picture was held in reserve by
the artist until 18 jj when it re-emerged into the limelight it has basked in ever since.
FRENCH SCHOOL 51
s
Camille Corot
DOUAI BELFRY (1871)

Canvas. 46 X 39 cms. (18 1/4 X 153/4 ins.)
Signed: Corot
Acquired in 1907. R.F. 17 10
The Louvre possesses 134 pictures by Corot, covering every aspect of his inspiration
(French or Italian landscapes, "Souvenirs" and figures) and every stage of his career.
The Douai Belfry, in common with Sens Cathedral (1874), demonstrates Corot'
assuredness, candour and freedom of approach in his final period. The work, painted in
twenty sessions, was executed in May 1S/1. Corot had been visiting Arras, Douai and
the surrounding district regularly for over twenty years to see his numerous friends, either
painters or art lovers, including Constant Dutilleux, Charles Desavary and Alfred Robaut.
The latter, the owner of the Douai Belfry, was Corot' s biographer and compiled the
catalogue of his work.
52 FRENCH SCHOOL
Jean-Francois Millet
(Gruchy, 1814-Barbizon, 1875)
WOMEN GLEANING (1857)

Canvas. 84 x in cms. (33 1/2 x 44 1/4 ins.)
Signed: /. F. Millet
Mme Pommery bequest, 1890. R.F. 592
This painting, executed with dogged determination by Millet at Barbi^pn in 18 jj, a time
of severe financial strain, depicts the plain of Chailly. It aroused much adverse comment,
despite the praises of Theophile Gautier and Edmond About, when it was displayed at
the Salon of 18 jy; some commentators accused Millet of socialist and revolutionary inten-
tions and interpreted the the gleaning women as "the Parcae of pauperism". Although
Millet asked j,ooo francs for the work, he only received 3,000 from an admirer on —
the lie Adam. Thirty-two years later Mme
Pommery purchased it for 300,000 francs
and bequeathed it to the Louvre.
FRENCH SCHOOL 53
Theodore Chasseriau
(Sainte-Barbe-de-Samana, San Domingo, 1819-Paris, 1856)
THE TWO SISTERS (1843)

Canvas. 180 X 135 cms. (72 X 54 ins.)
Signed: T. Chasseriau, 184}
Given by the baron Arthur Chasseriau, 1919. R.F. 2214
Here Chasseriau depicts his two sisters Adele (born 1810) and Alice (born 1822). The
element of sincerity underlying the impressive virtuosity of the work somewhat confused
critics when it was presented at the Salon of 1843 (in A. Houssaye's opinion the Two
<(
Sisters was injurious to taste and common sense"). The Louvre possesses a second
portrait of Adele, painted in 1830, also given by the baron Arthur Chasseriau, and
also a number of drawings of both sisters dated 18 41 which were doubtless used as working
drawings for the double portrait of 1843.
54 FRENCH SCHOOL
Honore Daumier
(Marseilles, 1802-Valmondois, 1879)
THE WASHERWOMAN
Wood. 49 X 33 cms. (193/4 X 13 1/4 ins.)
Bears the monogramme: H.D.

Acquired in 1927 by courtesy of D. David- Weill. R.F. 2630
Daumier lived on the quai d'Anjou on the lie Saint-Louis, and on several occasions painted
thewasherwoman he saw returning from the wash-house by the Seine. The painting in the
Louvre is the most powerful of these compositions. As
with most of Daumier s work
(only six of his paintings were exhibited during his lifetime) the exact date of execution
is uncertain. It seems likely however that this picture was painted betiveen 1861 and 186).
Daumier in fact exhibited a Washerwoman (.although it is difficult to say which) at

the Salon of 1861 and dated an identical copy of the Louvre version 186); this replica,
much the worse for wear, is preserved in the New York Metropolitan Museum.
FRENCH SCHOOL - 5 5
Gustave Courbet
(Ornans, 1819-La Tour-de-Peitz, 1877)
THE ATELIER (1855)

Canvas. 361 x 598 cms. (144 X 239 ins.)
Signed: // G. Courbet
Acquired in 1920 through public subscription and the Friends of the Louvre. R.F. 2257
In this "real allegory" or, as Courbet put it, the "physical and moral story" of his
career, the artistshows himself working on a Franche-Comte landscape with the Muse of
Truth as his inspiration. To the right of the scene stand the "friends and lovers of the
art world" (which include Baudelaire, Champfleury and Proud hon) and to the left the
"other world of trivial life, the people, poverty... the exploited, people more dead than
alive". This painting, second only to his Burial at Ornans (1849), was executed by
Courbet at Ornans between November 18j 4 and May 18 jj. It, was rejected by the Salon
of 18 j j (when he heard of this, Delacroix wrote in his Journal: "...they've refused one of
the most singular works of our time") but made a scandalous impact at the one-man
exhibition Courbet organised in the precincts of the Universal Exposition of 18jj.
56 FRENCH SCHOOL
V
>y
Cimabue (Cenno di Peppo)
(Florence, c. 1240-after 1302)
MAESTA (THE VIRGIN AND ANGELS)

Wood. 424 x 276 cms. (169 X 108 ins.)
This altarpiece, originallyin the church of San Francesco in Pisa for which it was probably
intended, was transferred to the Louvre in 181 3. Some historians believe the work dates
from the time of Cimabue 's visit to Pisa in 1301 and 1302, shortly before his death.
But such a hypothesis now seems doubtful; it seems more feasible to regard the Maesta
in the Louvre as having been executed in 1270, which makes it one of the first large-scale
creations of Cimabue, who was strongly influenced by the work of the sculptor Nicola Pisano.
It is therefore conceivable that the Maesta in the Louvre antedates the Maesta of
Santa Trinita in the Ujfi%i Gallery in Florence.
5! ITALIAN SCHOOL
Giotto
(Colle de Vespignano, i266?-Florence, 1332)
ALTARPIECE OF ST. FRANCIS

Wood. 314 X 162 cms. (125 1/2 x 64 1/2 ins.)
Signed: OPVS JOCTI FLORENTINI

Like Cimabue's Maesta this altarpiece by Giotto also came originally from the church
of San Francesco in Pisa. The four scenes depicting events in the life of St. Francis repeat,
with variations Giotto'''s frescoes in the nave of the Upper Basilica of A.ssisi: St. Francis
',
Receiving the Stigmata, The Vision of Innocent III, Innocent III Approving
the Statutes of the Order, St. Francis Preaching to the Birds. Executed in about 1300,
this altarpiece has often been though to be an atelier piece, despite Giotto's signature; but
several modern historians reject such a deprecatory assumption and attribute both the
overall conception of the work and the execution of the three scenes of the predella to
Giotto himself.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 59
Simone Martini
(Siena, c. 1284- Avignon, 1344)
THE CARRYING OF THE CROSS

Wood. 25 x 16 cms. (10 x 6 1/4 ins.)
Acquired in 1834. Inv. 67P et seq.
This panel is one of six wings forming a small portable polyptych which Simone Martini
painted for a member of the Or sini family\ probably during his visit to the Papal Court
at Avignon ( 1 340-1 344). It is a composition which seems to have appealed to late
XIV th century Franco-Flemish artists, for we find it imitated by Jacquemart de Hesdin
in a miniature (also in the Louvre) forming part of the Tres Belles Heures du due de
Berry. However, it seems likely that during the early XVth century this particular
polyptych was kept in Champmol Charterhouse near Dijon. Four of the remaining wings
(Calvary, Deposition from the Cross, Annunciation) are in the possession of the
Royal Museum of Fine Arts inAntwerp; another {the Laying in the Tomb) can be
seen in the Berlin Dahlem Museum.
60 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Antonio Pisanello
(Pisa, c. 1 395-145 5?)
PORTRAIT OF A PRINCESS D'ESTE

Wood. 43 X 30 cms. (17 1/4 x 12 ins.)
Acquired in 1893. Inv. 1422 A
Several theories exist as to the sitters identity: the two-handled vase, emblem of the d'Este
family, embroidered on the sleeve suggests that she was a princess of the d'Este family
and the sprig of juniper picked out on her bodice seems to point to her being Ginevra, the
hapless wife of Sigismondo Mala testa who had her poisoned in 1440. She has otherwise
been identified as Margaret Gonâga, wife of Lionello d'Este (whose portrait by Pisanello
can be seen at Bergamo) or alternatively as Margaret's sister Cecilia, historians do
however agree that the likeness is one of the finest of the artist's mature period (14)6-14)8) .
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 6l
Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni, known as)
(Siena, i392?-Siena, 1450)
THE VIRGIN AND CHILD SURROUNDED BY ANGELS,

ST. JOHN THE EVANGELIST AND ST. ANTHONY OF PADUA
Wood. Central panel. 205 x 115 cms. (82 x 46 ins.). Volets: 194 X 58 cms. (77 1/2 x 23 1/4 ins.)
These three panels from a large double sided polyptych, since dismembered, which
Sassetta painted between 1439 and 1444 for the church of San Francesco at Borgo San
Sepolcro. Originally St. John the Evangelist and St. Anthony of Padua were depicted
side by side on the right of the Virgin and Child Surrounded by Angels, with the
Blessed Ranieri and St.John the Baptist (Berenson Collection) on the left. On the
reverse of these five panels were represented the Ecstasy of St. Francis (National Gallery,
London; Muse'e Conde\ Chantilly) Part of the predella {the Blessed Ranieri delivering
.
the prisoners) was acquired by the Louvre in 196 r by courtesy of the Friends of the
Louvre, and one other part can be seen in the Berlin Dahlem Museum.
62 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Fra Angelico (Guido di Pietro)
(active from 1417-Rome, 1455)
THE CROWNING OF THE VIRGIN

Wood. 211 x 211 cms. (84 1/4 x 84 1/4 ins.)
Musee Napoleen, 1812. Inv. 314
The predella of this altarpiece depicts the Pieta und episodes in the life of St. Domenic
and was originally located in the church of San Domenico at Fiesole. Having been chosen
by Vivant-Denon for the Musee Napoleon from the collection in the Accademia of Florence ,
it was allowed to remain in the Louvre by the Florentine commissioners in 181 j, and is
thus one of Fra Angelico *s most important works outside' Italy. Besides the Crowning,
generally dated towards 1434-14$}, the period when he reached full artistic maturity,
Fra Angelico executed two earlier altarpiece for San Domenico; the central section of one
of them remains in the church, the other {the Annunciation) can be seen in the Prado.
A later fresco by Fra Angelico {the Crucifixion), acquired by the Louvre in 1881, is
of similar provenance.
ITALIAN SCHOOL 63
Paolo Uccello (known as Paolo di Dono)
(Florence, c. 1397-Florence, 1475)
THE BATTLE OF SAN ROMANO

Wood. 180 x 315 cms. (72 X 126 ins.)
Acquired in 1863 as part of the Campana Collection. M.I. 469
This painting recreates an episode in the Battle of San Romano, 1432: the counter-
attack by Micheletto da Cotignola which brought the Florentines victory over the Sienese.
The National Gallery in London and the Uffiî in Florence possess two other compositions
by Uccello illustrating different aspects of the same battle. The three paintings,
designed to form a whole, were executed about 14JO-14JJ for Medici Palace (now
the
the Pala^ô Ricardi). They are mentioned in an inventory made for Lorenzo the
Magnificent in 1498. It seems that the three compositions were originally displayed side
by side on the same wall, the National Gallery picture being on the left, the Uffiî picture
in the centre and the Louvre scene on the right.
64 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Andrea Mantegna
(Isola di Carturo? c. 1430/143 i-Mantua, 1506)
CALVARY
Wood. 67 x 93 cms. (26 1/2 x 37 1/4 ins.)
This pane t\ and two others {the Prayer in the Garden of Olives and the Resurrection)
deposited in Tours Museum in 180^ form the pre della of a large triptych commissioned
from Mantegna by Correr for the high altar in
the abbe the church of. San Zeno in Verona.
The upper panels of resit ed in 1814, depicted the Madonna and Child
the triptych^
Surrounded by Angels and Eight Saints. The San Zeno altarpiece ranks as one of
the finest creations of Mantegna and was executed in Padua between 14J6 and 1460.
This triptych exerted considerable influence over Paduan and Venetian artists until the
end of theXV th century.
ITALIAN SCHOOL 65
Cosimo Tura
(Ferrara, c. 1430-1495)
PIETA
Wood. 132 x 267 cms. (52 3/4 x 106 1/2 ins.)
Acquired in 1863 as part of the Campana Collection. M.I. 485
This work originally formed the upper section of a large polyptych, painted by Tura in
about 1480 for the Roverella family, located in the chapel of the church of San Giorgio
fuori le Mura in Ferrara. The central panel (The Virgin and Child Surrounded by
Angels) is at present in the National Gallery in London, the right wing (Two Saints
and a Benefactor of the Roverella Family) is part of the Colonna Collection in Rome
and a fragment of the left wing (St. George) can be seen in San Diego Museum, California.
Three round panels depicting scenes from the Childhood of Christ (New York Metro-
politan Museum; Fogg Museum, Harvard; Gardner Museum, Boston) might have been
part of the predella of the same triptych.
66 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Antonello da Messina
(Messina, c. 1430- Venice, 1479)
PORTRAIT OF A MAN, or IL CONDOTTIERE (1475)

Wood. 35 X 28 cms. (14 X 10 1/4 ins.)
Signed: 1475, Antonellus messaneus me. pinxit

The expression of resolution and pride which animates this portrait, the most striking
of Antonello *s twelve known portraits, explains why the sitter hasbeen dubbed
II Condottiere; his true identity however remains unknown. The work dates from 147 j
and thus coincides with the artist's visit to Venice. It was acquired at the sale of the
comte de Pourtales-Gorgier's collection in 186 /.
ITALIAN SCHOOL 67
1
Sandro Botticelli
(Florence, c. 144 5 -Florence, 15 10)
VENUS AND THE GRACES

OFFERING PRESENTS TO A YOUNG GIRL
Fresco. 212 X 284 cms. (84 3/4 X 113 3/4 ins.)
This fresco, and another (Lorenzo Torbabuoni before the Assembly of the Liberal
Arts) also in the Louvre, once adorned the loggia of the 'Villa T.emmi near Florence,
originally the residence of the Tornabuoni family. The Allegories portrayed in both
frescoes have been variously interpreted, but they are not now regarded as alluding to the
marriage of Lorenzo Tornabuoni and Giovanna degli Albiî ( i486) ; judging by their
style, they probably date from about 1483.
These frescoes, discovered beneath a coating of distemper in 18/3, suffered some damage
when they were detached from the wall.
68 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Leonardo da Vinci
(Vinci, 1452-Cloux, 1 5 19)
THE VIRGIN OF THE ROCKS

Wood transferred on to canvas. Arched upper section: 199 X 122 cms. (79 1/2 x 48 3/4 ins.)
It is not known when this painting entered the Royal Collections, but it is recorded as
being at Fontainebleau in 162 /, and- was probably one of the master's works acquired by
Francois I. The original destination of the work is also problematic; most historians are
of the opinion that it was the painting commissioned by the Brotherhood of the Conception
of San Francesco Grande of Milan on April 2jth y 148) and put in place in i486; others
believe that Leonardo had already planned, if not started, the composition by the time
he left for in 148). In either case, it was widely acclaimed and frequently imitated
Milan
by the Lombardy painters. Leonardo probably executed a second version between 1 J03
and 1 j 06 with the assistance of his pupils to replace the original which had by
then left San Francesco Grande; this is the version which now hangs in the National
Gallery in London.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 69
Leonardo da Vinci
(Vinci, 1452-Cloux, 1 5 19)
PORTRAIT OF MONA LISA, or LA GIOCONDA
Wood. 77 X 53 cms. (30 3/4 X 21 1/4 ins.)
There are various hypotheses as to the identity of "La
Gioconda''. It seems reasonable
to suppose, as did Vasari, that the sitter was Mona
Lisa, born in Florence in 1479, who
married a leading Florentine citizen named Francesco de Giocondo in 149 J. The portrait
dates from Leonardo's second Florentine period ( 1 joo-i jo6), or to be more precise
from ijoj-ijoj. It was probably sold
Francois I by Leonardo himself or by his heir
to
Melî, since it was when he went to France. La Gioconda has
in the artist's possession
since been universally admired as the Renaissance-type portrait par excellence and has
been the subject of endless commentary and imitation. It became the most famous picture
in the world during the XlXth century, almost a cult-object one might say, and when it
was stolen from the Salon Carre in 191 1 and recovered in Italy two years later it attained
even greater notoriety. Over the last century the Mona Lisa has acquired a wealth
of esthetic, philosophical and sexual connotations; it has even been used as publicity
material; and ever since the irreverent treatment it received at the hands of the Dadaists
and Surrealists it has been the subject of an abundance of ridiculous interpretations.
7O - ITALIAN SCHOOL
1
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, known as)

(Urbino, 1483-Rome, 1520)
LA BELLE JARDINlfiRE (1507)

Wood. Arched upper section: 122 x 80 cms. (48 3/4X 32 ins.)
Signed: RAPHAELLO URB. and dated MDVII
This representation of the Madonna and Child with St. John the Baptist, traditionally
known as La Belle Jardiniere because of the rustic setting, is one of the most famous
Madonnas of Raphael's Florentine period ( IJ04-IJ08). It was probably acquired by
Francois I to add to his collection of other Raphaels, which included the full-length Holy
Family, St. Margaret, the full-length St. Michael, the Portrait of St. Joan of Aragon
and the Portrait of Two Men, all of which can be seen in the Louvre. However La Belle
Jardiniere is only mentioned with any certainty as being in the Royal Collections in
an inventory drawn up by Le Brun in 1683.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 7
Raphael (Raffaello Sanzio, known as)
(Urbin, 1483-Rome, 1520)
PORTRAIT OF BALTHASAR CASTIGLIONE

Canvas. 82 x 67 cms. (32 3/4 x 26 1/2 ins.)
Acquired in 1661 for the collection of Louis XIV. Inv. 611
This portrait of Balthasar Castiglione, diplomat and author of the famous treatise The
Courtier, friend of Raphael and favourite of Charles V
(who nicknamed him "the best
knight in the world"), is generally thought to date from IJ14-IJIJ.
From Italy the work passed into Holland where it was sold at a public auction in Amsterdam,
where Rembrandt saw it and made his drawing of it ( Albertina, Vienna) . Together
jvith the small St. George and
Michael it formed part of Cardinal Alaârin's
St.
collection and was acquired from his heirs in 1 661 for the collection of Louis XIV. It
has often been pointed out that the pose, as with other portraits by Raphael (the Young
Woman with the Unicorn in the Galleria Borghese for example), was inspired by
La Gioconda.
72 - ITALIAN SCHOOL
Correggio (Antonio Allegri, known as)
(Correggio, c. 1494-Correggio, 1534)
THE SLEEP OF ANTIOPE

Canvas. 190 X 124 cms. (76 x 41 3/4 ins.)
This picture, sometimes interpreted as the Sleep of Venus with Cupid and a Satyr,
is generally thought to date from IJ24-1J2J, and was probably a pendant to another
mythological composition, The Education of Love, at present in the National Gallery
in London. Both canvases, which originally belonged to the Gonâgas of Mantua, formed
part of the collection of Charles I. Antiope was acquired in 1 661 for Louis XIV from
the heirs of Cardinal Maârin, who had acquired the work from Jabach. Also from
the Gonâga residence in Mantua, where they adorned the Studiolo of Isabella d'Este,
are two other compositions by Correggio, both of which are in the Louvre, having been
acquiredfor the collection of Louis XIV, the Allegories of the Virtues and the Allegories
of the Vices.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 73
Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)
(Piere de Cadore, 1485?- Venice, 1576)
THE RUSTIC CONCERT

Canvas, no X 138 cms. (44 X' 55 1/4 ins.)
This picture belonged successively to the collections of the Gonâga family, Charles I
(162J) and Jabach, and entered the collection of Louis XIV in i6yi. The Rustic
Concert was widely imitated {it was no doubt the source of Manet's Dejeuner sur
l'Herbe) and has been, indeed continues to be, heatedly discussed. Although traditionally
attributed to Giorgione, and accepted as an example of Giorgione' s work by several his-
torians, other critics, with whom we concur, are of the opinion that it is one of the earliest
masterpieces of Titian, painted towards ijio-ijii, although they admit that it is imbued
with the spirit of Giorgone, Titian s teacher, who might have suggested the idea for the
subject.
74 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Titian (Tiziano Vecelli)
(Piere de Cadore, 148 5?- Venice, 1576)
THE ENTOMBMENT
Canvas. 148 X 205 cms. (58 1/4 X 82 ins.)
Acquired in about 1666 for the collection of Louis XIV. Inv. 749
Titian painted this composition towards ij2j probably at the request of the
Marchese Frederico Gonâga of Mantua with whom he had had dealings since 1 J 23.
This and other pictures executed by Titian for the same patron, including the Virgin
with the Rabbit, belonged successively to the collections of Charles I (1627), Jabach
and Louis XIV. A. renowned example of the Renaissance Grand Manner, the
Entombment has always aroused profound admiration and was copied by van Dyck,
Abraham van Diepenbeck, possibly Rubens, and later by Ge'ricault, Delacroix and
Fantin Latour, to name only the most illustrious.
ITALIAN SCHOOL -
75
Veronese (Paolo Caliari, known as)
(Verona, 1525-Venice, 1588)
THE WEDDING AT CANA (1563)

Canvas. 666 x 990 cms. (266 x 396 ins.)
Museum Central, 1801. Inv. 142
Veronese finished this gigantic group composition of 132 figures, commissioned in June IJ62
for the refectory built by Palladio for the Benedictine Convent of San Giorgio Maggiore
in Venice in September IJ63. It was taken to Paris in IJ99 and exchanged in 181 j for
,
Le Brun's Meal at the House of Simon. According to tradition, Veronese is supposed

to have depicted several Renaissance princes at this idealfeast, including Alphonso of Avalos,
Eleonor of Austria, Francois I, Mary Tudor, Soliman, Vittorio Colonna and Charles V,
and also Titian, Tintoretto, Jacopo Bassano, Palladio, himself and his brother Benedetto
attired as musicians.
76 ITALIAN SCHOOL
rJ
t,*^-
h
— -- A
fc
p I **i%
»lw*
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti, known as)
(Venice, 1512-Venice, 1594)
PARADISE
Canvas. 143X 362 ms. (57 1/4 X 144 1/2 ins.)
The Grand Council of the Palace of Venice having been damaged by fire in IJ77, a compe-
was held the following year for the decoration of the end wall, and Paradise was
tition
the theme stipulated. Four large sketches for the project exist, one by Veronese (Lille
Museum)^ the other three by Bassano (Hermitage) Palma the Younger ( A.mbrosiana,
,
Milan) and Tintoretto (the latter was formerly in the Palaô Bevilacqua in Verona
but is now in the Louvre) . Veronese and Bassano won the competition and were awarded
the commission, but were unable to carry out the work. Tintoretto was therefore entrusted
with the project (ij88). In this gigantic composition Tintoretto followed the main lines
of his original version, still to be seen in the Grand Council of the Palace of Venice, but
in its finished state the work loses some of its initial verve and brilliance.
78 - ITALIAN SCHOOL
ft*
"*"** :
5
Rosso Fiorentino
(Florence, 1495-Fontainebleau, 1540)
PIETA
Wood remounted on canvas. 125 x 159 cms. (50 X 63 3/4 ins.)
The Pieta, painted by Rosso for the Conne table Anne de Montmorency\ once adorned
the chapel of the chateau d'£couen. French
It is the only undisputed easel picture of Rosso' s
period ( 1 J 30-1 J40) and dates from the end of it, being preceded by his decoration of the
Galerie Francois I at Fontainebleau. The French and Italian painters of the Fontainebleau
School extensively imitated the decorative style of the Pieta, which exemplifies the dramatic
power Rosso admired in the work of Michelangelo.
80 - ITALIAN SCHOOL
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Niccolo Dell' Abbate
(Modena, c. 1509-Fontainebleau?, 1 571)
THE RAPE OF PROSERPINE

Canvas. 196 x 218 cms. (78 1/4 x 87 1/4 ins.)
The figures in this mythological composition are reminiscent of those Niccolo dell 'Abbate
painted in the Ballroom at Fontainebleau (ijj2-ijj6) under the direction of Primaticcio.
The Rape of Proserpine is of slightly later date however; like the Eurydice and
Aristarchus in the National Gallery in London, which might also have been part of the
same unity, it demonstrates an originality of approach to imaginary, picturesque and
fantastic landscape much exploited by the painters of the Fontainebleau School.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 8 I
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi, known as)
(Caravaggio, 1573-Porto Ercole, 16 10)
THE DEATH OF THE VIRGIN

Canvas. 369 X 245 cms. (147 X 98 ins.)
This picture, undoubtedly Caravaggio''s most important outside Italy, was commissioned
towards 160 j for the church of Santa Maria della Scala del Trastevere in Rome, but
was never placed in its intended position because of the scandal its realism aroused
in ecclesiastical quarters. Much admired by the Roman public when it was exhibited in
April i6oj, it was acquired by the Duke of Mantua on the recommendation of Rubens.
Like the majority of paintings in the Gonâga collection it passed to Charles J, Jabach
and finally to Louis XIV.
82 - ITALIAN SCHOOL
Annibale Carracci
(Bologna, 1560-Rome, 1609)
FISHING
Canvas. 136 X 253 cms. (54 1/4 X 101 1/4 ins.)
Entered the collection of Louis XIV in 1665. Inv. 210
This picture and its pendant\ which depicts the Hunt, was given to Louis XIV by
Prince Camillo Pamphili of Rome in 166 j. These two masterpieces in the landscape
genre belong to Annibale' s Bolognese period, and can be dated 1 j8j; Annibale was then
twenty-four and had just finished the frescoes in the Fava Palace in Bologna, executed in
collaboration with his brother Ludovico. Louis XIV \r collection contained other landscapes
by Annibale, including Rustic Feast (Musee de Marseille) which reveals the poetic
feeling, at once romantic and naturalistic, frequent in his younger work.
ITALIAN SCHOOL 83
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Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri, known as)

(Bologna?, 1581-Naples, 1641)
HERMINIA WITH THE SHEPHERDS

Canvas. 123 x 218 cms. (49 1/4 X 87 ins.)
Collection of Louis XIV, acquired before 1683. Inv. 799
Although formerly attributed to Annibale Carracci, this landscape is now regarded as

one of the finest works of Domenichino'*s mature period ( 1620-162J) and is a foretaste
of the large historical landscapes favoured by Poussin. The Louvre possessed two other
landscapes analogous with Herminia depicting scenes from the legend of Hercules. In
1690, seven years after Louis XIVacquired it, the landscape was put on display in the
Grand Trianon as a pendant to another of Domenichino *s canvases, Rinaldo and Armida.
84 ITALIAN SCHOOL
Francesco Guardi
(Venice, 1712-Venice, 1793)
THE DOGE ON HIS WAY TO LA SALUTA

Canvas. 67 x 100 cms. (26 3/4 X 40 ins.)
Museum Central, 1797. Inv. 320
This canvas depicts one of the "Solenita dogali" organised to mark the election of
the Doge A.lvise IV Mocenigo in 176). Guardi, no doubt inspired by engravings by
Brus to lo (ij66) after drawings by Canaletto, devoted twelve paintings to these festivities.
This unique set of paintings, which entered the collection of the comte de Pestre-Senef
towards the end of the XVIIIth century, was sequestered during the devolution and split
up when the provincial museums were established during the First Empire. Two paintings
in the set were sent to the Nantes and Grenoble Museums and another to Brussels; the
remaining scenes are in the L,ouvre.
ITALIAN SCHOOL - 85
Jan van Eyck
(Maeseyck? c. 1390-Bruges, 1441)
THE VIRGIN OF AUTUN

Wood. 66 X 62 cms. (26 1/4 X 24 3/4 ins.)
Musee Napoleon, 1805. Inv. 1771
Before the Revolution this painting bung in the collegiate church at Autun. In all pro-
bability it was donated by a member of the Rolin family. Most historians
to the church
suppose the donor to have been Nicolas Rolin ( 13J6-14J2), Chancellor of Burgundy ,
who played a prominent role at the court of Philippe le Bon, and date the work about 143 /,
which means that it was executed between the Arnolfini Marriage Group of 1434
(London) and the Madonna of Canon van der Paele of 1436 (Bruges). The town
depicted in the background has been variously identified as Maastricht, Utrecht, Lyon,
Geneva, Autun or Liege, or it might be a composite city constructed from van Eyck's
travel drawings and recollections.
86 FLEMISH SCHOOL
Rogier van der Weyden
(Tournai, 1399/1400-Brussels, 1464)
BRAQUE TRIPTYCH
Wood. Central panel: 41 X 69 cms. (16 1/4 X 27 3/4 ins.)
Wings: 41 X 34 cms. (16 1/4 X 13 1/2 ins.)
The coat of arms on the reverse is that of Jehan Braque of Tournai and his wife Catherine of
Brabant, The triptych might have been executed at the request of both husband and wife,
who were married in 14JO or 14JI, or more feasibly at the request of Catherine of Brabant
in memory of her husband, who died in 14J2, as the death's head painted on the back of
the left wing would suggest. Whichever is the case, the work dates from the period imme-
diately after van der Weyden''s visit to Italy in 14JO, a time when his work attained perfect
formal and spiritual poise. The triptych remained in the Braque family until the end
of the XVI th century, but reappeared in England in the XlXth. From the Marquess of
Westminster it passed into the collection of Lady Theodora Guest and in 191 3 was
acquired by the Louvre, which already possessed van der Weyden' s Annunciation.
FLEMISH SCHOOL - 87
Geertgen tot Sint Jans
(Haarlem?, c. 1 460/ 146 5 -c. 1495)
THE RAISING OF LAZARUS

Wood. 127 x 97 cms. (50 3/4 X 38 3/4 ins.)
This painting is of Spanish provenance but was only attributed to Geertgen in i Sj/, when
affirmed as his work by Jules Kenouvier of Montpellier, the owner of the picture at that
time. The Raising of Lazarus does indeed have strong affinities with two other works
in the Vienna Museum which provide what knowledge we possess of this rare and long
forgotten artist: Deposition from the Cross and the Burning of the Bones of St. John.
The picture in the Louvre was probably executed towards 1484^ and is therefore contem-
porary with the last mentioned painting in the Vienna Museum. The influence exerted
over Geertgen by his master\ Albert van Ouwater, is evident here and appears especially
marked if one looks at Ouwater's treatment of the same theme in a composition in the
Berlin Dahlem Museum.
88 - DUTCH SCHOOL
Hans Memlinc
(Seligenstadt am Main, c. 1433-Bruges, 1494)
PORTRAIT OF AN OLD WOMAN

Wood. 35 x 29 cms. (14 X 11 3/4 ins.)
Originally this picture, with Portrait of an Old Man (Berlin Dahlem Museum) formed
,
a diptych. As in the majorityof his portraits Memlinc seats his model in front of a
landscape (continuous in the Berlin and Louvre portraits) and in doing so followed the
Flemish tradition initiated by Dirk Bouts and possibly Rogier pen der Weyden. The
two portraits\ generally dated between 14JO and 147J, were still joined as recently as
1884, when they belonged to the Cavalier Meavga Collection in Milan.
FLEMISH SCHOOL -
89
Hieronymus Bosch
(Bois-le-Duc, c. 1450-Bois-le-Duc, 15 16)
SHIP OF FOOLS
Wood. 57 X 31 cms. (22 3/4 x 12 1/4 ins.)
Given by Camille Benoit, 1918. R.F. 2218
In this complex allegory which repeats and embroiders traditional XV

th century Flemish
themes — the"barque of the pleasure-seekers" and human folly —
Bosch stigmatises the
corruption of society and the clergy. The work, painted prior to the Hay Wain in the
Prado, can be situated in the last decade of the XVth century. A
small panel in Yale
University Art Gallery (Allegory of the Pleasures) might once have formed the lower
section of the Ship of Fools. The Print Room in the Louvre also possesses a drawing
which some critics consider to be a preliminary study for the Ship of Fools, but which
others believe to be a copy made after the painting was completed.
90 DUTCH SCHOOL
Michiel Sittow
(Reval, c. 1469-Reval, 1525)
THE CROWNING OF THE VIRGIN

Wood. 26 X 20 cms. (10 1/4 X 8 ins.)
Acquired in 1966. R.F. 1966.11
This work was one of a set offorty-seven panels depicting the life of Christ and the Virgin
painted between 1496 and IJ04 for Her Catholic Majesty Isabella of Castille by two
artists of Flemish origin working in Spain, namely ]uan of Flanders and Michiel Sittow.
The various sections of this altarpiece have since been scattered. There exist two other
panels by Sittow (including the Assumption in the National Gallery in Washington)
and twenty-three by Juan of Flanders, one of which (Christ and the Samaritan Woman)
is in the Louvre.
FLEMISH SCHOOL - 01
Quentin Metsys
(Leuven, 1465/1466-Antwerp, 1530)
THE MONEY CHANGERS (15 14)

Wood. 71 X 68 cms. (28 1/4 X 27 1/2 ins.)
This famous work, which might once have belonged to Rubens, is considered one of the
finest examples of genre painting in the how Countries. Metsys shows in exemplary
detail a jeweller\ or money-changer weighing pieces of money and his wife, apparently
',
fascinated by the sight of gold. A.lthough devoid of allegorial intention, the scene nevertheless
is reflection: the frame once bore the significant inscription "Let the scales be
a moral
and the weights equal" It is thought that the artist derived his inspiration from
accurate .
a work by Jan van Eyck, since destroyed, which depicted a "merchant casting up his
accounts with his assistant, in half-length" . The mirror in the foreground, which reflects
the fourth side of the room where the painter is at work, is strikingly reminiscent of
van Eyck's technique.
)2 - FLEMISH SCHOOL
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Attributed to Lucas van Leyden
(Leyden?, 1489 or 1494-15 3 3)
LOT AND HIS DAUGHTERS

Wood. 58 X 34 cms. (23 1/4 X 13 1/4 ins.)
Most historians agree that this panel is attributable to Lucas van Leyden, as suggested
by M. J. Friedlander. Some date towardsijop and regard it as one of the artist's first
excursions into oils (engravings form the bulk of his precocious early work) whilst others
prefer a later date around 1 J17, which seems more likely. In either case, and even if the
present attribution is not entirely conclusive, we can legitimately rate Lot and his Daughters
as one of the first masterpieces of landscape fantasy and luminism as practised by the
Netherlands School (with the exception of course of the works of Hieronymous Bosch).
The poetic atmosphere suffusing the work prompted Antonin Artaud to write commentaries
very popular with the Surrealists.
DUTCH SCHOOL - 93
Pieter Bruegel the Elder
(c. 1 5 25 -Brussels, 1569)
THE BEGGARS (1568)

Wood. 18 X 21 cms. (7 1/4 x 81/2 ins.)
Signed: BRUEGEL MCLXVIII

Given by Paul Mantz, 1892. R.F. 730
The subject of this painting, one of BruegeTs last, has given rise to various interpretations;
the portrayal of the maimed and disabled has been construed as a political symbol (referring
("
to the beggars" in revolt against Philippe II) as a sociological symbol (referring to the
,
five classes of society: kings, bishops, soldiers, bourgeois and peasants) and as a moral
symbol (referring to the deformities and physical degradation of mankind) — which
does not rule out the possibility that Bruegel meant to convey all three meanings.
"Little is known of the history of the work; it might have belonged to the Imperial Collections
in Prague, and might have been transferred to the collection of Queen Christina of Sweden
94 FLEMISH SCHOOL
Antonio Moro
(Utrecht, c. 15 17- Antwerp, 15 76/ 15 77)
THE DWARF OF CARDINAL GRANVELLA

Wood. 127 x 93 cms. (50 1/2 x 37 1/4 ins.)
Acquired for the collection of Louis XIV before 1683. Inv. 1583
The Granvella coat of arms on the dog's collar serves to identify the sitter, for a long time
thought to be a Dwarf of Charles V. A.ntoine Perrenot Granvella ( 1 J17-1 j86) ,
Bishop of Arras and later Cardinal, apparently became Moro's patron in 1 J49. The
picture in the Louvre is generally dated about 1 j6o and with the Jester of Philippe II
(Prado) is one of the earliest paintings of dwarfs and jesters, much esteemed at the
Spanish court and later the subject of the famous set of paintings by Velasque^.
DUTCH SCHOOL - 95
Peter Paul Rubens
(Siegen, 1577-Antwerp, 1640)
PORTRAIT OF HELENE FOURMENT AND HER CHILDREN

Canvas. 115 X 82 cms. (45 1/4 X 32 1/2 ins.)
This family portrait, painted between 1636 and 163 j, depicts Rubens' wife He'lene Fourment,
whom he married in 1630, his son Francois, born in 1633 and his daughter Claire-Jeanne,
born in 1632. In some places the paintwork, otherwise perfectly preserved and as fresh as
the day it was painted, has been left unfinished: on the chair on the right of the composition
one can see only the faint outline of a child's hand. Did Rubens intend at one time to add
his second daughter, Isabella-Claire, born in 163 j, to the group? There is another portrait
of He'lene Fourment and Francois, painted shortly before the Louvre portrait, in the
Munich Picture Gallery.
96 - FLEMISH SCHOOL
Peter Paul Rubens
(Siegen, 15 77- Antwerp, 1640)
VILLAGE FAIR
Canvas. 149 X 261 cms. (59 1/2 x 104 1/4 ins.)
The Village Fair, the apogee of Flemish XVIIth century genre paintings is generally
dated between 163 j and 1638. Two preliminary drawings for the composition can be
seen in the British Museum, and a painting of similar inspiration, the Peasants Dancing
a Round, belongs to the Prado. Village Fair was acquired for Louis from XIV
M. de PAubespine, marquis de Hauterive, in 168 j. Much admired ever since, it was a
source of inspiration for many XVIIIth century French painters, especially Watteau,
who copied several of the groups in the picture.
FLEMISH SCHOOL 97
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Anthony van Dyck

(Antwerp, 1599-London, 1641)
PORTRAIT OF CHARLES I, KING OF ENGLAND

Canvas. 272 x 212 cms. (108 3/4 x 84 3/4 ins)
Signed: A. VAN DUCK F
Van Dyck was summoned toEngland by Charles I (1600-1649), appointed court painter
and received a knighthood. During his residence in England he executed numerous portraits
of the king in various attitudes, in battle dress or as a sovereign in all his glory. In the
Louvre portrait, undoubtedly one of the finest of van Dyck's portraits of Charles I, the
king is depicted as a nobleman returning from the hunt. The work dates from about 163 j;
in 1638 the artist asked £200 for it, but received only half that amount. The picture
appeared in a succession of XVIIIth century French collections before being acquired by
the comtesse du Barry, who alleged she was related to the Stuarts. It was bought from
her for the Royal Collections in 177J.
98 FLEMISH SCHOOL
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Jacob Jordaens
(Antwerp, 1593-Antwerp, 1678)
THE FOUR EVANGELISTS

Canvas. 132 x 118 cms. (52 3/4 x 47 1/4 ins.)
The traditional identification of the subject is sometimes questioned, wrongly it seems.

Some maintain that thework could he Christ explaining the Scriptures to the Doctors.
Historians date the piece 1617-1618 or later between 1 620-162 j, but the work is undeniably
one of the most robust of Jordaens* early period. The existence of several copies or inter-
pretations attests its success with Jordaens'* contemporaries. The Four Evangelists
might possibly have been the work, mentioned in 16)2 as being in the possession
of dieter Last man, Rembrandt* s teacher. Be that as it may, it reappeared in the XVIIIth
century in Paris as part of the comte de VaudreuiPs collection, and was acquired, together
with other Flemish and Dutch masterpieces, for the Royal Collections when the Vaudreuil
Collection was sold in 1784.
FLEMISH SCHOOL 99
Franz Hals
(Antwerp, 1 5 80-Haarlem, 1666)
THE GYPSY WOMAN

Wood. 58 x 52 cms. (23 1/4 x 20 1/2 ins.)
This study of a woman #^0 ^j- wor* /Ztf features of a courtesan than a gypsy is generally
, ',
dated between 1628 and 1630 and can be compared with other portraits of "picturesque"
subjects painted by Hals at about the same period, notably the so-called Mulattos (Kassel
and Leipzig Museums), the Jolly Drunkard (Kijks museum, Amsterdam) and the
Malla Babba (Berlin) During the XVIIIth century the work appeared in the collection
.
of M. de Marigny, Director of Buildings under Louis XV

and brother of the marquise de
Pompadour. It then emerged in the La Ca%e Collection beside another of Hals' master-
pieces, Portrait of a Woman, painted towards the close of his life.
IOO - DUTCH SCHOOL

Rembrandt Harmensz. van Ryn
(Leyden, 1606-Amsterdam, 1669)
THE PILGRIMS AT EMMAEUS (1648)

Wood. 68 X 65 cms. (27 3/4 X 26 ins.)
Signed: Rembrandt f. 1648

This work, which appeared in the W. Six sale at Amsterdam in 1734 and then entered
the Paris collection of the comte de Las say, was acquired for Louis XVI
at the sale of
the Randon de Boisset Collection in 1777. Its theme inspired two engraving (executed
in 1634 and 16 j 4) and several other paintings, one of them, a youthful work of violent
and dramatic impact, which can be seen in the Aluse'e Jacquemart Andre and another, in
complete contrast and sometimes regarded as the most profoundly classical work of the
Historians point out that to achieve the moving simplicity
artist's maturity, in the Louvre.
of this famous composition Rembrandt drew on his recollection of various works on similar
themes, on the Last Supper for example, as portrayed by Durer, Leonardo and Veronese.
DUTCH SCHOOL IOI

4
Rembrandt Harmensz. van Ryn

(Leyden, 1606- Amsterdam, 1669)
BATHSHEBA (1654)
Canvas. 142 x 142 cms. (56 3/4 X 56 3/4 ins.)
Signed: Rembrandt f. 16j
La Caze Collection, bequeathed in 1869. M«L 957
Rembrandt chose his twenty-two-year-old mistress Hendrickje Stoffels, whom he had

engaged as a maidservant in 164% as his sitter for this composition (he also painted a bust
of her in i6jo, which is in the Louvre). Many critics believe this portrait was a pendant
to his Danae, painted in 1636 (Hermitage) , which extols the beauty of his wife Saskia.
Bathsheba is one of the most intimate and personal works of the painter s later career
because of its utter truthfulness, the biblical context being completely subordinate.
Bathsheba, formerly the twin jewel of the La Caê Collection {with Watteau's Gilles),
was acquired by the Louvre from the London collection of W. Young Otley.
I02 - DUTCH SCHOOL

Jakob van Ruisdael
(Haarlem, 1628/1629-1682)
THE SUNBURST
Canvas. 83 X 98 cms. (33 1/4 X 39 1/4 ins.)
Monogram signature
This landscape; acquired at the sale of the comte de Vaudreidl'*s collection in 1784, appears
9
to date from Ruisdael s later period, around i6jo. Sunburst is not descriptive of a real
or even probable scene, as in the majority of his pictures (for example the Bush, in the
Louvre) ; it is instead a wide, imaginary panorama composed from an arbitrary position
of elevation and achieves such dramatic breadth and depth that it recalls certain landscapes
by Rembrandt. Some critics believe the small figures in the picture are the work of
Philip Wouwerman.
DUTCH SCHOOL IO3

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Meindert Hobbema
(Amsterdam, 163 8-1709)
THE WATERWHEEL (1692)

Canvas. 80 x 65 cms. (32 x 26 ins.)
Dated: May 1692
In this work Hobbema reiteratesa motif which he treated on several occasions. This
explains why other Landscapes with a Waterwheel hang in the Chicago, Cincinnati
and Toledo Museums. The picture in the 'Louvre, originally a pendant to Farm in Sunlight
which appeared in a Paris sale in 1924, belonged to the Coders Collection in Amsterdam.
During the XlXth centuiy it passed into various collections in Brussels, London and
Paris, and was purchased by the Louvre in 1861. At this time the landscape painters
of the Barbi^pn School, which owed its early inspiration to Kuisdael and Hobbema, were
begininng to come into favour with the general public; its acquisition by the Loure was
warmly appreciated and the Waterwheel rapidly became very popular.
104 DUTCH SCHOOL

Jan Vermeer of Delft
(Delft, 1632-Delft, 1675)
THE LACE MAKER

Canvas. 24 X 21 cms. (9 3/4 X 8 1/4 ins.)
Signed: J. V. Meer
The Lace Maker, a product of Vermeer' s last period\ was painted between 1664 and 166'/,
which means that it is contemporary with the Studio in Vienna; it appeared at an
Amsterdam sale in 1696 together with twenty other paintings by the artist. It belonged
to various Dutch collections during the XVIII th passed into the Lapeyriere
century, then
collection in Paris in 181 /, returned to Holland and was finally purchased by the Louvre
in 1 S/o shortly after Thore-Burger "exhumed" Vermeer from oblivion as an artist of
the first importance. Renoir considered the Lace Maker to be the finest picture in the
Louvre with the exception of Watteau's Embarkation for Cythera.
DUTCH SCHOOL - IO5

Pieter de Hooch
(Rotterdam, 1629-after 1684)
THE CARD PLAYERS

Canvas. 67 X 77 cms. (26 1/2 x 30 1/2 ins.)
Signed: P.D. Hooch
This picture made appearance at a sale in The Hague in 17 jo, then passed into
its first
the Paillet Collection in Paris, and was subsequently acquired for the Muse'e Napoleon
at the sale of the Toloân Collection in 1801. It is generally believed to date from 166'/-
1668, or from de Hooch's early Amsterdam period when he showed a marked preference
for depicting fashionable gatherings in lavish settings. The scene in this painting appears
to take place in a gaming house. Another picture by de Hooch which dates from his pre-
ceding period in Delft, also in the L,ouvre y depicts a more modest interior.
[06 - DUTCH SCHOOL

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Master of St. Bartholomew
(Cologne, late xvth-early xvith century)
DESCENT FROM THE CROSS

Wood. 220 X 214 cms. (88 X 85 3/4 ins.)
Museum Cenrtal. Inv. 1445
This panel formed the centre section of a large triptych, the wings of which were found
in somewhat dilapidated condition in Arnhem Museum, executed for a community of the
Order of St. Anthony. From the XV
'th century onwards it belonged to a Jesuit nunnery
in the rue Saint- Antoine, then to the Val-de-Grdce, and from there entered the
passed
"Louvre. The Descent from the Cross, a masterly work by the most renowned painter
in late XV r
th century Cologne, was inspired by Rogier van der Weydert s famous composi-
tion now in the Prado, and is generally dated towards the end of the artist's career between
1 j 00 and ijoj; during this period he also executed the St. Bartholomew Altarpiece
in the church of the Holy Dove in Cologne (Munich Picture Gallery) and it is this work ,
that gave him his nickname.
GERMAN SCHOOL IO7

Albrecht Diirer
(Nuremberg, 147 1 -Nuremberg, 1528)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST (1493)

Parchment mounted on canvas. 56 X 44 cms. (22 1/4 X 17 3/4 ins.)
Dated: 149)
This is Diirer''s self-portrait at the age of twenty-two. It is probably the first independent
self-portrait painted in Northern Europe, excepting of course Fouquet's self-portrait on
enamel of forty years pervious ly (also in the Louvre). The work was probably painted in
the course of Diirer s journey between Basle and Strasbourg before his return to Nuremberg
in 1494. It was once suggested, wrongly it seems, that this was a betrothal portrait; it
is likely however that the plant the artist is holding has an allegorical meaning apart from
that of conjugal fidelity, its more usual significance.
I08 - GERMAN SCHOOL

Wolf Huber
(Feldkirch, c. 1485-Passau, 1553)
CHRIST LAMENTING (1524)

Wood. 105 X 86 cms. (42 X 34 1/4 ins.)
Dated: IJ24
This work by Wolf Huber (he and Altdorfer were the leading exponents of the Danube
The work is a striking demonstration of Huber s dramatic
School) is exceedingly rare.
power and masterly treatment of landscape^ and dates from his mature period^ spent
mainly in Passau. The theme of Christ Lamenting is one that he sketched and painted
on several occasions
',notably in a composition dated ijzi (Feldkirch) The three persons
.
in the attitudeof witnesses who appear to the right of the central group probably represent
the donor of the picture with his family.
GERMAN SCHOOL - IO9

Lucas Cranach the Elder
(Kranach, 1472-Weimar, 1553)
VENUS (1529)
Wood. 33 X 26 cms. x 10 1/4 ins.)
(13 1/4
Signed with a dragon mark and dated 1529
Musee Napoleon. Inv. 11 80
This painting, of unknown provenance before its acquisition for the Musee Napoleon,
was part of a group of Venuses, most of them accompanied by Cupids, which Cranach
and his assistants painted between 1 J2j and 1 J3J. The initial inspiration for the Venus
theme seems to have been Diirers Eve; as early as 1 joy Cranach executed a painting
(Hermitage) and an engraving representing Venus. The graphic preciosity and poetic
aura of the landscape in the Louvre Venus render it one of the most attractive of the
artist's later career.
I IO - GERMAN SCHOOL
Hans Holbein the Younger
(Augsburg, 1497-London, 1543)
PORTRAIT OF ERASMUS (1523)

Wood. 42 x 32 cms. (16 3/4 X 12 3/4 ins).
Acquired for the collection of Louis XIV. Inv. 1345
In this picture Holbein depicts Erasmus ( 1469-1 J36) writing bis Commentary on
the Gospel According to St. Mark. The work dates from 1 J23, as does another
Erasmus by Holbein (Longford Castle) There exists yet another Erasmus which
.
Holbein painted ten years later (Basle Museum). The Louvre portrait is charged with
such intensity and meaning that it has become the accepted likeness of Erasmus the scholar
and humanist. The work belonged successively to Charles I, Jabach and Louis XIV;
the Sun King possessed three other famous Holbeins (Anne of Cleves, N. Kratzer
and W. Warham) all of rvhich can be seen in the Louvre.
GERMAN SCHOOL - I I I
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MARTYRDOM OF
Bernardo Martorell
(active
.
,
a
between 1427 and 1452)
ST. GEORGE
m
Wood. 107 x 53 cms. (42 3/4 x 21 1/4 ins.)
Given by the Society of Friends of the Louvre, 1904. R.F. 1571
This picture is one of, a series offour panels, set ope pair above the other to form the wings
of an altarpiece consecrated to St. George, which depict the Sainfs trial and martyrdom.
The three other panels are also in the Louvre. The central section (St. George and
the Dragon) now belongs to the Art Institute 'of Chicago. The work as a whole gave
Martorell, the most outstanding Catalan exponent of the International Gothic Style, the
(<
provisional name of the Master of St. George" until he was positively identified. The
altarpiece of St. George is generally believed to date from 1430-143J.
112 - SPANISH SCHOOL

Jaime Huguet
(Vails, 141 5 -Barcelona, 1492)
THE SCOURGING OF CHRIST

Wood. 106 x 210 cms. (42 1/4 x 84 ins.)
Acquired in 1967 by courtesy of the Friends of the Louvre. R.F. 1967.6
This panel, Huguet' s most important outside Spain, was painted between 14 jo and 1460
for the Shoemakers'' Corporation of Barcelona (a pair of laced boots, the emblem of
the fraternity, is carved on the frame) The panel was preserved until the late XlXth cen-
.
tury in the chapel of St. Mark in Barcelona Cathedral, where it formed an altar front
protected by wings only opened twice yearly; the painting is therefore in a perfect state
of preservation.
SPANISH SCHOOL - I I
3
3
El Greco (Domenikos Theotokopoulos, known as)

(Candia, 1 541 -Toledo, 16 14)
CHRIST ON THE CROSS ADORED BY TWO DONORS

Canvas. 250 x 180 cms. (100 x 72 ins.)
Signed in Greek script: Domenikos Theotokopolis

This picture originally adorned the altar of the church of the Hyeronimite nuns of La Reina
in Toledo, and is dated about 1 j8o when the artist began to establish his reputation in
the city. However, the identity of the donors remains uncertain.
The picture belonged to the Spanish Gallery of Louis-Philippe, bequeathed to the Louvre
at one juncture but sold in 18j 3, and was donated to the town of Prades by Isaac Pereire
in 1 86 3, finally entering the Louvre in 1908.
114 SPANISH SCHOOL

Jusepe de Ribera
(Jativa, 1591-Naples, 1652)
MAN WITH A CLUBBED FOOT (1642)

Canvas. 164 X 92 cms. (65 3/4 X 36 3/4 ins.)
Signed: Jusepe de Ribera espahol F. 1642
The Man with a Clubbed Foot comes from the collection of the Stigliano family of
Naples and might originally have been executed for the Duke of Medina de las Torres,
,
Viceroy of Naples from i6)j to 1644. It has been suggested that Dwarf with a Dog,
until recently part of the Lederer Collection in Vienna, was once a pendant to the work
in the Louvre. The Man with the Clubbed Foot /"/ a famous example —
and one
often abused by critics— of the fondness of Spanish painters and collectors for portrayals
of physical deformities; here however the forthright naturalism of the painter's approach,
Carravaggesque in origin, obviously outweighs any morbid symbolism.
SPANISH SCHOOL - I I 5
.
Francisco de Zurbaran
(Fuente de Cantos, 1598-Madrid, 1664)
EXHIBITION OF THE BODY OF ST. BONA VENTURE

Canvas. 250 X 225 cms. (100 X 90 ins.)
This picture is the last in a series of four compositions devoted to St. Bonaventure which
Zurbaran painted after 1629 to adorn the church of St. Bonaventure College in Seville.
Another of these canvases, St. Bonaventure at the Council of Lyons, hangs in the
Louvre, the third in Dresden Museum, and the last, formerly in Berlin, was destroyed
in 194J. Francisco de Herrera the Elder began the series in 162J and painted four other
episodes in the life of St. Bonaventure, two of which (St. Bonaventure as a Child Being
Healed by St. Francis and Communion of St. Bonaventure) are in the Louvre.
Zurbaran''s series belonged to the famous Spanish collection of Mare'chal Soult, and appeared
at the sale of the Soult Collection in 18 J2; they were acquired by the Duke of Dalmatia
in i8j8 for the Louvre.
Il6 SPANISH SCHOOL

\
Bartolome Esteban Murillo

(Seville, 1617-1682)
THE BEGGAR BOY

Canvas. 137 X 115 cms. (54 3/4 X 46 ins.)
This picture is generally thought to date from 16 /<?, during Murillo' s early period in Seville
represented in the Louvre by the Angels' Kitchen of 1646. The Munich Picture Gallery
Dulwich Museum and the Hermitage possess other well-known compositions depicting
children and various aspects of the lives of the common people. We know that the Beggar Boy
was in Cordoba at the beginning of the XVIIIth century, that it was later acquired for
the Royal Palace in Madrid and that it eventually entered France in somewhat obscure
circumstances. The dealer Lebrun sold it to Louis XVI
in 1782.
SPANISH SCHOOL 117

Juan Carrerio de Miranda
(Aviles, 1614-Madrid, 1685)
THE FOUNDATION MASS OF THE TRINITARIAN ORDER

Canvas. Arched upper section: 500 x 327 cms. (200 x 130 ins.)
Signed: J.V° Careno Fbat A 1666

Given by the Countess E. de Caraman, 1964. R.F. 1964-36
This vast composition, planned a preliminary sketch now in the A.kademie

in detail in
der Bildenden Ktmste in Vienna, was executed in 1666 by Carreho to adorn the high altar
in the church of the Trinitarian Convent in Pampluna. The picture probably left Spain
after 1836 and passed into the collection of the Duke of Padua, an ancestor of the Count de
Caraman. It was recognised as a masterpiece by Carreho* s contemporaries, but was
subsequently forgotten; and Carreho is today remembered chiefly as a portraitist. The
Foundation Mass is striking testimony to the thriving state of the Madrid School after
Velasque^ death.
I I 8 - SPANISH SCHOOL
'.
////////
1
Francisco Goya
(Fuentetodos, 1746-Bordeaux, 1828)
PORTRAIT OF THE COUNTESS DEL CARPIO, or LA SOLANA

Canvas. 181 X 122 cms. (72 1/4 X 28 3/4 ins.)
Collection belonging to Carlos de Beistegui, bequeathed in 1942. R.F. 1942-23
This portrait , and also Goya's portraits of the Countess of Chinchon and the Duchess of
A.lba and la Firana, ranks amongst the artist's most attractive female portraits. It
represents Maria Rita Barrenechea y Morante (c. 17JO-179J) who married the
Count del Carpio in 177 J ; he became Marquis de la Solana in 179 J, only a short while
before his wife's death. Itseems unlikely that the Countess was Marchioness de la Solana
at the time she sat for Goya. Some historians date the work about 1791, to coincide with
Goya's "grey" period which preceded 179 2, the critical year when he became deaf; others
date it 1794, the year he recovered from his illness and resumed his career.
120 SPANISH SCHOOL

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Thomas Gainsborough
(Sudbury, 1727-London, 1788)
CONVERSATION IN A PARK
Canvas. 73 X 67 cms. (29 1/4 x 26 1/2 ins.)
Given by M. Pierre Bordeaux-Groult, 1952. R.F. 1952-16
hike several other Conversations depicting young couples in parks or in the countryside,
this composition belongs to Gainsborough'*s early career, when he was influenced by the
French Rococo style introduced into England through the drawings and illustrations of
Grave lot; we also know that Gainsborough was Grave lot's pupil at St. Alar tin's Academy.
It is highly probable that the couple depicted are in fact Gainsborough and his wife, and
that the work was painted in 1746, the year of their marriage.
ENGLISH SCHOOL
Joshua Reynolds
(Plympton, 1723-London, 1792)
MASTER HARE (1788)

Canvas. 76 X 62 cms. (30 1/4 X 24 3/4 ins.)
Bequeathed by the Baron Alphonse de Rothschild, 1906. R.F. 1580
Master Hare, one of Reynolds' most appealing child portraits, was painted towards the
end of the artist's life, in 1788 or 1789, for his aunt, Lady Jones, and is a study of her
adopted son Francis George Hare. The work, popular as an engraving published in 1790
under the title Infancy, remained in the sitter s family until 1868, then passed into the
Mulligan Collection; it was acquired by the Baron Alphonse de Koths child in 1872 and
bequeathed to the Louvre in 1906.
ENGLISH SCHOOL
Richard Parkes Bonington
(Arnold, 1802-London, 1828)
THE ORNAMENTAL LAKE AT VERSAILLES

Canvas. 42 x 52 cms. (16 3/4 X 20 3/4 ins)
This canvas was purchased by the Louvre at the sale of the Etienne Arago Collection in
i8j2 and appears to date from the end of Bonington''s short career, probably being painted
in 1826. It is often quoted as a singularly revealing example of the artist* s technical
freedom — the oils are worked to the transparency of water colours — and "modern"
candour of approach.
ENGLISH SCHOOL 123

Joseph Mallord William Turner
(London, 1775-185 1)
LANDSCAPE
Canvas. 94 x 123 cms. (37 1/2 x 49 1/4 ins.)
Acquired in 1967. R.F. 1967.2
This work, formerly part of the Camille Groult Collection, is related to a group ofpaintings
displayed in the Tate and National Galleries in "London. These works, which belong to
Turner's final period, that is after 1830, were left in their preliminary state. These
"informal" landscapes, in which light and colour dissolve the contours, demonstrate the
sort of technical freedom and lyricism not fully appreciated until comparatively recently.
The site depicted is difficult to identify; it is probably a combination of Turner's Italian
and English reminiscences and his recollections of composed Classical landscapes.
124 ENGLISH SCHOOL

James McNeill Whistler
(Lowell, 1834-London, 1903)
PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST'S MOTHER

Canvas. 145 X 164 cms. (58X 65 1/2 ins)
Signed with a butterfly monogramme
Acquired from the artist in 1891 for the Musee du Luxembourg, entered the Louvre in 1926. R.F. 699
Probably commenced as early as i86j this painting was badly received when
i
it was exhibited
at the Royal Academy in i8j2 under the title Arrangement in Grey and Black No. 1.
Only after it had been exhibited in Philadelphia in 1881 and in Paris at the Salon of 1883
was it eventually purchased by the State in 1891, thanks to the exertions of a group of
Whistler's friends and admirers , including Clemenceau and Mallarme. The sale of this
portrait firmly established Whistler's name, until then a highly controversial one in official
art circles in London and the United States. Since its accession to the Louvre Portrait
of the Artist's Mother, an especial favourite of Whistler himself has become one of
themost popular works in the English series.
ENGLISH SCHOOL - 1 25
6
1
index
Anonymous French painter (XI Vth century) 1
Angellco, Fra 63
Antonello da Messina 67
Baugin 27
Bonington, Richard Parkes 123
Bosch, Hieronymus .
90
Botticelli, Sandro 68
Boucher, Francois 38
Bruegel the Elder, Pieter 94
Carracci, Annibale 83
Caravaggio (Michelangelo Merisi, known as) 82
Carreno de Miranda, Juan 11 8-1 19
Champaigne, Philippe de 32
Chardin, Jean-Baptiste-Simeon 37
Chasseriau, Theodore 54
Cimabue 58
Claude (— Gellee, known as — Lorrain) 31
Clouet, Francois 21
Clouet, Jean 3
Corot, Camille 52
Correggio (Antonio Allegri, known as) 73
Courbet, Gustave 56-57
Cranach the Elder, Lucas no
Daumier, Honore 5 5
David, Louis 42-43

Delacroix, Eugene 50-5
Domenichino (Domenico Zampieri, known as) 84
Durer, Albrecht 108
Dyck, Anthony van 98
El Greco (Domenikos Thetokopoulos, known as) 114

Eyck, Jan van 86
Fouquet, Jean 18
Fragonard, Honore 39
126
1
Gainsborough, Thomas 121

Geertgen tot Sint Jans 88
Gericault, Theodore 48-49
Giotto 59
Goya, Francisco 120
Greuze, Jean-Baptiste 41
Gros, Antoine 44-45
Guardi, Francesco 85
Hals, Franz 100

Hey, Jean 20
Hobbema, Meindert 104
Holbein the Younger, Hans 1 1
Hooch, Pieter de 106

Huber, Wolf 109
Huguet, Jaime 113
Ingres, Jean-Dominique 46-47
Jordaens, Jacob 99
Largilliere, Nicolas de 34
La Tour, Georges de 24
Le Brun, Charles 33
Le Nain, Louis 25-26
Leonardo da Vinci 69-70
Le Sueur, Eustache 30
Lucas van Leyden 93
Master of the Fontainebleau School 22

Master of Moulins 20
Master of St. Bartholomew 107
Malouel, Jean 17
Mantegna, Andrea 65
Martini, Simone 60
Martorell, Bernardo 112
Memlinc, Hans 89
Metsys, Quentin 92
Millet, Jean-Francois 53
Moro, Antonio 95
Murillo, Bartolome Esteban 117
Niccolo del 1' Abbate 81
Perronneau, Jean-Baptiste 40
Pisanello 61
Poussin, Nicolas 28-29
Quarton, Enguerrand 19
127
Raphael (RafTaello Sanzio, known as) 71-72
Rembrandt ( —
Harmensz. van Ryn) 1 01-102
Reynolds, Joshua 122

Ribera, Jusepe de 115
Rigaud, Hyacinthe 5
Robert, Hubert 9
Rosso Fiorentino 80
Rubens, Peter-Paulus 96-97
Ruisdael, Jakob van 103
Sassetta (Stefano di Giovanni, known as) 62

Sittow, Michiel 91
Tintoretto (Jacopo Robusti, known as) 78-79

Titian (Tiziano Vecellio) 74"75
Tura, Cosimo 66
Turner, Joseph Mallord William 124
Uccello, Paolo 64
Vermeer de Delft, Jan 105

Veronese (Paolo Caliari, known as) 76-77
Vouet, Simon 23
Watteau, Antoine 35-36

Weyden, Rogier van der 87
Whistler, James Mac Neil 125
Zurbaran, Francisco de 116
Impnmerie M. Dechaux, Aulnay-sooi Bois - 6-1976 - Depot legal : 1er trimestre 1970 - Flammarion et Cie, editeurs (N° 9323) - N° d'impression : 5734.

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MICHEL LACLOTTE

chief curator of paintings department

important, the sustained generosity of private benefactors, offers a

naturally he purchased or commissioned easel pictures from his

THE MUSEUM CENTRAL

Baigneuses, Franz Hals' Gypsy Woman and Rembrandt's Baths heba,

THE LOUVRE DURING THE XXTH CENTURY

forced to rely increasingly on private generosity, on the support of

The Grande Galerie in 1968.

PORTRAIT OF JEAN II LE BON, KING OF FRANCE

Inscription: Jehan Roy de France

On trust from the Bibliotheque Nationale, 1925. R.F. 2490

Attributed to Jean Malouel

PIETA OF OUR LORD, or GRANDE PIETA RONDE

On the reverse: coat of arms of Philippe the Bold, due de Bourgogne

PORTRAIT OF CHARLES VII, KING OF FRANCE

Inscription on the frame:

Acquired in 1838. Inv. 9106

Attributed to Enguerrand Quarto n

Acquired by the Friends of the Louvre in 1905. R.F. 1569

This painting, the most renowned of the French XV

ST. MAGDELENA AND A BENEFACTRESS

Acquired in 1904. R.F. 15 21

PORTRAIT OF PIERRE QUTHE (1562)

DIANA THE HUNTRESS

This likeness, painted towards ijjo, is generally recognised as an idealised portrait of

Royal Collections. Inv. 8500

ST. JOSEPH THE CARPENTER

Acquired in 191 5. R.F. 2081

Ever since P. Jamot works of the three Le Nain

THE BLACKSMITH'S FAMILY

Acquired for the collection of Louis XVI in 1777. Inv. 683

>6 - FRENCH SCHOOL

THE DESSERT OF WAFER-BISCUITS

FRENCH SCHOOL - Z~f

THE POET'S INSPIRATION

Acquired in 191 1. R.F. 1774

THE SUMMER OF RUTH AND BOAZ

Acquired for the collection of Louis XIV in 1665. Inv. 7304

THE MUSES MELPOMENE, ERATO AND POLYHYMNIA

CLEOPATRA DISEMBARKING AT TARSUS (1642)

THE EX-VOTO OF 1662

THE CHANCELLOR SEGUIER

Acquired in 1942 by courtesy of the Friends of the Louvre. R.F. 1942.3

VF^P W** "

PORTRAIT PRESUMED TO BE OF THE ARTIST,

La Caze Collection, bequeathed in 1869. M.I. 1085

to be singing a romance, a social accomplishment of the period. To judge by the apparent

THE EMBARKATION FOR CYTHERA (1717)

Although made an associate of the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 17 12,

detailed vein in his "Morceau de Reception" de 1717, purchased by Frederick II

THE PURVEYORESS (1739)

Signed: Chardin, 1739

LE DEJEUNER DU MATIN (1739)

Signed: /. Boucher 17)9

3> FRENCH SCHOOL

La Caze Collection, bequeathed in 1869. M.I. 1055

PORTRAIT OF THE LADY OF SORQUAINVILLE (1749)

Signed: Perroneau f. 1749