Jacques-André Portail

Private collection, Belgium, since 1960s

Portail began his career as an architect, in his native Brittany, and only came to Paris in middle age, to take up a post as superintendant of the King's pictures, at Versailles. His career, particularly from the point of his arrival in Paris, circa 1740, is well documented in Xavier Salmon’s 1996 publication on the artist, from which it becomes clear that despite his lack of a formal Academy training, the elegance and technical skill achieved in his drawings made Portail’s work eminently fashionable among contemporary collectors and members of the French court alike.¹ His use of red and black chalk, sometimes, as in the case of the present work, with wash, and his very precise handling, which often attains an almost porcelain-like finish, combine to create a unique and instantly recognizable style, which continues to be lauded by collectors today.

The present drawing, depicting an elegant young woman in profile playing a guitar, fits very securely into the artist’s graphic oeuvre, with the aforementioned medium and technique consistent with a number of the artist’s most accomplished works. The drawing can also be closely compared to another very similar sheet by Portail, published by Salmon as belonging to a private collection, New York, in which the same woman is depicted, with minor differences such as the shape of the chair and the fall of her dress.² The woman in both drawings is shown playing a guitar, which Salmon notes is very similar in appearance to the exquisite instruments made by Alexandre and Jean Voboam, just two members of the multi-generational family dynasty who, for the best part of a century, were the most celebrated luthiers in France.

The existence of these two closely comparable works would suggest that this was a composition and subject that Portail (or indeed one of his patrons) particularly admired, clearly deeming it to be of sufficient quality to warrant producing an alternative version. The high level of finish found in both works does, however, make it impossible to determine which version came first - and, indeed, irrelevant, given the exquisite quality of both of these outstanding, rare drawings. 

1.  X. Salmon, Jacques-André Portail, Cahier du Dessin Français no. 10, Paris 1996, pp. 5-11
2. Ibid., p. 17, no. 19, reproduced p. 44