Maurice-Quentin de la Tour

Camille Groult;
sale, Paris, Palais d'Orsay, Ader Picard Tajan, 28 November 1978, lot 9, reproduced;
with Wildenstein, New York, French Master Drawings from the 16th through the 18th centuries, 1999;
Private collection

Versailles, Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Le voleur d'âmes. Maurice Quentin de la Tour, 2004, no. 10, reproduced 

A. Besnard and G. Wildenstein, La Tour, Paris 1928, p. 177, no. 606, reproduced fig. 194 (as Un Abbé);
S. Perreau, Hyacinthe Rigaud, toute l'actualité, website, in entry about the Rigaud portrait;
N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, London 2006, p. 316, reproduced

NOT TAKEN OUT OF FRAME. SEEMS TO BE LAID DOWN ON CANVAS, VISIBLE THROUGH PEEPHOLE IN BACKING
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NOTWITHSTANDING THIS REPORT OR ANY DISCUSSIONS CONCERNING A LOT, ALL LOTS ARE OFFERED AND SOLD AS IS" IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE CONDITIONS OF BUSINESS PRINTED IN THE SALE CATALOGUE."

This free and lively study is based on Hyacinth Rigaud's portrait of the Archbishop (fig. 1).¹  La Tour seems to have made a number of copies after the work of other painters, but as Xavier Salmon wrote about this head study in the 2004 exhibition catalogue (loc. cit.): 'Comme à son habitude, le pastelliste ne chercha pas à reproduire l'ensemble de la composition de son prédécesseur, toute d'ostentation, mais il s'appliqua à seulement fixer les traits d'un visage vieilli par les excès et l'amour de la bonne chère.'

Charles-Gaspard-Guillaume de Vintimille du Luc was born 15 November 1655.  He was Bishop of Marseille from 1684 to 1708 and then Archbishop of Aix from 1708.  In 1729 he was appointed Archbishop of Paris, as well as Duc de Saint-Cloud.  He was awarded the Order of the Saint-Esprit in 1724.  His portrait by Rigaud, for which he paid 3000 livres in 1732, shows him in an opulent setting, resplendent in his success, wearing the decoration of the Order and holding his biretta.  At his death in Paris in 1746, he left an extensive collection which was inventoried with the help of the famous dealer, Gersaint.

1. Rochester, New York, University Art Museum; see S. Perreau, Hyacinthe Rigaud, Montpellier 2004, p. 117, fig. 87