Lot 80
  • 80

Louis-Michel van Loo

Estimate
120,000 - 180,000 GBP
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Description

  • Louis-Michel van Loo
  • Portrait of the Comtesse Marie Louise de Beaurepaire, seated full length in a landscape holding a garland of flowers
  • signed and dated lower right: L.M. Van Loo 1766
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

Baron Nathaniel von Rothschild (1836-1905), Vienna;
Bequeathed by the above to his nephew Louis von Rothschild (1882-1955), Vienna;
Confiscated by the Nazi authorities in 1939 and destined for the Führer Museum in Linz;
Restituted in 1946 and returned to the Rothschild family in 1947;
With Newhouse Galleries, New York;
Acquired from the above by Walter P. Chrysler Jr. in November 1953;
His sale, New York, Sotheby's, 1 June 1989, lot 100;
With Richard Green, London, from whom acquired by the present collector.

Exhibited

Portland, Oregon, Portland Art Museum; Seattle, Seattle Art Museum,; San Francisco, California Palace of the Legion of Honour; Los Angeles, Los Angeles County Museum; Minneapolis, Institute of Arts; St. Louis, Missouri, City Art Museum; Kansas City, William Rockhill Gallery of Art; Detroit, Detroit Institute of Arts; Boston, Museum of Fine Arts, Paintings from the collection of Walter P. Chrysler, Jnr., 1956-1957, no. 63;
New York, Finch College Museum of Art, French Masters of the Eighteenth Century, 1963, no. 24, reproduced;
On loan to the Chrysler Museum, Norfolk, Virginia, December 1975;
London, Richard Green, Exhibition of Old Master and English Paintings, 1989, no. 16, reproduced.

Literature

C. Bailey, The first painters of the King: French Royal taste from Louis XIV to the Revolution, 1985, p. 141 (as 'Carle van Loo');
S. Lillie, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteignungeten Louis' brother Kunstsammlungen Wiens, Vienna 2003, p. 1116, no. 21 (as by Carle van Loo).

Condition

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly old firm lining that has retained the natural texture well. There is a smooth undisturbed surface with one small retouching in the side of the sitter's bodice, one other near the middle of the left edge and another in the drapery near the base, with a few minor retouchings at intervals along the top and base edges. The pristine brushwork of the face and even flowing treatment throughout is unusually intact, and the remarkable lack of accidental damage in a large canvas, especially given its wartime history is also remarkable. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

Louis-Michel van Loo was the eldest son and pupil of the painter Jean-Baptiste van Loo (1684-1745) and the nephew of the painter Carle Van Loo (1705-1765). He was admitted (reçu) to the Académie Royale in 1735, when he specialised in portrait painting and teaching. Though he worked in both Paris and Rome, he is chiefly distinguished for the considerable influence he had on the development of painting in Spain, where he worked from 1737 to 1752 as court painter to King Philip V.

This painting dates from after Van Loo's return to Paris in 1752. In the ensuing two decades Van Loo exhibited regularly at the Salon and enjoyed considerable success as a portrait painter. He succeeded his uncle Carle van Loo as Director of the Ecole Royale des Elèves Protégès in 1765. He was widely patronised, and painted not only Louis XV (Versailles) but also every other member of the French royal family, as well as famous contemporary  men of letters and science such as Diderot (1767, Louvre). His style, honed by nearly thirty years of practise at court, was always elegant, refined and correct, but in works such as his famous portrait of the Marquis de Marigny and his wife (1769) he showed himself capable of an intimacy and characterisation of real distinction1.

The precise identity of the sitter in this portrait has hitherto remained uncertain. She is most probably Marie Louise Catherine de Moyria (c.1735-1804), who married in 1763 Comte Jean-Baptiste Joseph de Beaurepaire, and whose son, Joseph Claude François de Beaurepaire (1769-1854) later rose to eminence as a soldier and statesman.

 

1. Sold, London, Christie's, 10 June 1994, lot 14.