Jean-Baptiste Perronneau

Garnier Collection;
Huché Collection;
Georges François-Pierre Chinard-Huché (1864-1937),
from whom purchased by Georges Dormeuil in June 1907,
thence by descent to the present owners

Possibly Paris, Galerie Georges Petit, Cent Pastels du XVIII^e siècle, 1908, no. 81 (?)

N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, London 2006, p. 413

Georges Dormeuil's notes record that the previous owner believed this to be a portrait of one of the three wives of the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Lemoyne.  Dominique d'Arnoult, who will include this work in her forthcoming catalogue raisonné of the artist's works, and Neil Jeffares have, however, both pointed out that the sitter does not in fact resemble the known images of Le Moyne's wives (see the previous lot), and also that the present pastel should, on stylistic grounds, be dated around 1766, by which time they were all dead.