Cesare-Auguste Detti

Purchased directly from the artist by Holland Galleries;

James Buchanan Brady (1856–1917), New York (acquired from the above);

His sale, New York, American Art Galleries, Plaza Hotel, 8 January 1918, lot 63;

Where acquired by A. Deutsch;

Private collection, Florida, by 1974;

Thence by descent to the present owner.

A world apart from the Greco-Roman, mythological, or peasant life scenes so popular in the late nineteenth century, Cesare-Auguste Detti’s compositions satisfied his patrons’ nostalgia for courtly genre. In the present work, the artist portrays a gathering of members of a royal court or wealthy nobility; each figure wears elaborately detailed costumes in many pastel and jeweled hues which perfectly complement the gilded decorations and elaborate ornaments of the grand room. Though suggesting a subtle narrative, overall Detti delights in detailing the pleasures of living well, based factually on the court culture of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. 

Detti closely studied the history of the great courts of Europe and owned an extensive array of period costumes and objets d’art (there remain several photographs showing the artist dressed as a cavalier, and his collections of period armour, statuary, and tableware were carefully inventoried). Indeed, the present work accurately replicates the elaborate decorative programs of eighteenth century Rococo interior design, which experienced a revival in the mid- to late nineteenth century. The homes of Detti’s patrons, many of them prominent members of European and American society, included great entry spaces proclaiming the owner’s wealth and cultural pomp with decorative programs of giltwood, sculpture, and yards of fine fabric draping the walls. These sumptuous spaces often held the best of society enjoying flamboyant entertainment. The pinnacle of social activity during the 1880s and to the turn of the century, grand costume balls were an ideal event in which to demonstrate refined taste and sociability