- 37
Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
Description
- Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
- Portrait of the artist Giovanni Paolo Panini (1691–1765)
- indistinctly signed and dated on the book lower left: L G Blanchet [fec]it / 1736
on the reverse a tracing of an old inscription on the original support reads: Paolo Panini, peintre d'Architecture / Orig. [le] Peint par G. Blanchet a Rome
- oil on canvas
Provenance
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby’s, 28 March 1979, lot 69 (as Carle van Loo);
Collection of the British Rail Pension Fund;
From where sold, London, Sotheby’s, 5 July 1995, lot 54 (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet);
With Colnaghi & Co. Ltd, London.
Exhibited
Philadelphia Museum of Art, 27 February – 21 May 2000; Houston, Museum of Fine Arts, 17 June – 7 September 2000, Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, no. 182;
Rome, Palazzo Venezia, Il Settecento a Roma, 10 November 2005 – 26 February 2006, no. 77.
Literature
Subleyras 1699–1749, exhibition catalogue, Paris and Rome 1987, p. 123, reproduced (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet);
M. Kiene, Panini, exhibition catalogue, Paris, Plaisance and Braunschweig 1992–93, p. 21 (as Carle van Loo);
G. Sestieri, Repertorio della Pittura Romana della Fine del Seicento e del Settecento, Turin 1994, vol. I, p. 30, vol. II, no. 125, reproduced (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet);
E. P. Bowron in Art in Rome in the Eighteenth Century, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia and Houston 2000, p. 328, no. 182, reproduced;
A. di Croce, in Il Settecento a Roma, exhibition catalogue, Rome 2005–06, pp. 196–97, no. 77, reproduced;
F. Petrucci, Pittura di Ritratto a Roma. Il Settecento, Rome 2010, vol. I, p. 80, fig. 85, reproduced; vol. II, p. 431, fig. 157, reproduced (as Louis-Gabriel Blanchet).
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
Panini is shown before a dimly-lit canvas resting upon an easel, his working hand holding a stylus and leaning on a large portfolio. He wears a richly embroidered blue velvet jacket through which protrudes a sumptuous white chemise. A brilliant red cloak surrounds him like an ancient toga and completes the tricolore of colour. It is at once grand and informal, the painter elaborately dressed for a formal portrait but with an informality to his comportment of the clothes and to his pose, leaning forward rather than standing straight and turning his head sharply to his left to engage us with his smiling gaze. The painting thus belies both the standing, success and elegance of sitter (he is shown as an artista-gentiluomo) and the brilliance of its painter, who has brought a richness of character to both the painting and its subject. Few portraits by Blanchet can be so successful in describing their sitter.
That Panini chose Blanchet to paint his portrait is not surprising given his strong links to the French community in Rome. In 1718 he chose Reynaud Levieux, an orfèvre from Langeudoc, as godfather to his eldest son; his second wife Catherine Gosset was daughter of a French banker in Rome and sister-in-law of Nicolas Vleughels, director of the French Academy in Rome from 1724–37 where Panini himself taught perspective. Unusually for a roman painter he was even granted the honour of membership of the Académie Royale in Paris, and was patronised by the Duc de Choiseul and Cardinal Melchior de Polignac (Louis XV’s ambassador in Rome) amongst many others. He was to influence many a French landscape painter in Rome, particularly so Claude-Joseph Vernet and Hubert Robert.2
For a long time the portrait was thought to be by Charles André Van Loo. However, upon relining in 1979 the following inscription was discovered on the reverse of the original canvas: Paolo Panini, peintre d'Architecture / Orig. [le] Peint par G. Blanchet a Rome. Three years later in 1982, during the restoration of the paint surface by Viola Pemberton-Pigott, the cover of the folio was found to be entirely overpainted. Upon removal of the overpaint, traces of the original signature and date were discovered, the details of which are recorded in subsequent literature and sales catalogues as reading: L G Blanchet [fec]it / 1736. The traces are now only visible to the very keenest of eyes.
1. Such as in the Preparations to celebrate the birth of the Dauphin in France in 1729 in Piazza Navona, Rome, 1731 (National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin), or the Interior of the Picture Gallery of Cardinal Silvio Valenti Gonzaga (Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, CT).
2. Factual information is taken from E. P. Bowron, 2000.