- 80
Louis-Michel van Loo
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
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
S. Lillie, Was einmal war. Handbuch der enteignungeten Louis' brother Kunstsammlungen Wiens, Vienna 2003, p. 1116, no. 21 (as by Carle van Loo).
Condition
"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.