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拍品专文
Marie Thérèse Louise of Savoy, the sitter in this painting, married Louis Alexandre de Bourbon-Penthièvre, Prince of Lamballe in 1767. The marriage had been suggested as a suitable match by Louis XV, as both bride and groom descended from side-lines of their respective royal families – she the great-granddaughter of Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia and his French mistress the comtesse de Verrue, and he the grandson of Louis XIV's legitimised son, Louis Alexandre de Bourbon, comte de Toulouse. Following the prince’s premature death only a year later, Marie Thérèse continued living with her father-in-law, the duc de Penthièvre at Rambouillet who is likely to have commissioned this contemplative portrait of her from his peintre ordinaire, Jean-Baptiste Charpentier. It is possible that the building seen through the trees is meant to be the Château de Rambouillet, as one of the distinctive finials of the turrets can be glimpsed above the roof. Due to their extensive charitable acts on and around their estate the pair earnt themselves the names ‘King of the Poor’ and the ‘Angel of Penthièvre’.
Charpentier painted many portraits of the duc’s family, including a double portrait of the duc and his daughter Louise-Marie de Bourbon, future duchesse d’Orléans, in which he is seated reading in the garden and she proffers a basket of cut flowers (fig. 1; Musée national du Château de Versailles). Both the present portrait and the Versailles double portrait are executed using conventions from the tableaux de mode, a style that developed in the 1720s with the work of artists such as Jean-François de Troy and which allowed for elements of genre painting to be incorporated into traditional portraiture. The sitters were shown performing everyday activities, such as reading or drinking hot chocolate, giving the works a more relaxed air. The inclusion of a rose in Marie Thérèse’s right hand may have added an element of symbolism to the portrait. One of the most widely known poems in French culture was and is Ronsard’s Quand vous serez bien vieille (When you are old), in which a gentleman speaks from beyond the grave to his living love. In the final line of this he guides her to: ‘Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie’ (Gather the roses of life today). To the noble eighteenth-century French viewer, holding the rose would thus have been understood as a sign that Marie Thérèse had chosen to go on living life to the full despite the sadness of her widowhood, which is denoted both by her veil and the dead rose at her feet. Given this, and the beautifully frothy robe à la française that she wears, it is likely that this portrait dates to circa 1769-70.
At this date, with the death of Maria Leszczyńska, it was suggested that the lovely young widow might marry Louis XV; however, this was a match that neither she nor her father-in-law desired. Instead, she went on to become one of the closest confidents of his daughter-in-law, Marie-Antoinette, who in 1775 appointed her to the position of Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine, the highest ranked lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Despite being later replaced as the Queen’s favourite, Marie Thérèse remained unfailingly faithful to her mistress. Though she had been nursing her father-in-law at the outbreak of the Revolution in October 1789, she returned to be with the Court. The night of the Flight to Varennes in June 1791, Marie-Antoinette left a letter instructing Marie Thérèse to meet the Royal party in Brussels. After failure of this plan, Marie Thérèse, who had succeeded in reaching England and had taken up residence in Bath, decided that it was her duty to return to Paris. Finally, in August 1792 she was taken from the Tuileries and imprisoned. There followed the September Massacres, during which the mob stormed the prisons, set up a people’s tribunal and summarily executed the prisoners. Due to her refusal to swear hatred to the king and queen in her trial, Marie Thérèse was lead into the streets where she was killed by the mob. Her body was never found and there is no tomb to her name.
Charpentier painted many portraits of the duc’s family, including a double portrait of the duc and his daughter Louise-Marie de Bourbon, future duchesse d’Orléans, in which he is seated reading in the garden and she proffers a basket of cut flowers (fig. 1; Musée national du Château de Versailles). Both the present portrait and the Versailles double portrait are executed using conventions from the tableaux de mode, a style that developed in the 1720s with the work of artists such as Jean-François de Troy and which allowed for elements of genre painting to be incorporated into traditional portraiture. The sitters were shown performing everyday activities, such as reading or drinking hot chocolate, giving the works a more relaxed air. The inclusion of a rose in Marie Thérèse’s right hand may have added an element of symbolism to the portrait. One of the most widely known poems in French culture was and is Ronsard’s Quand vous serez bien vieille (When you are old), in which a gentleman speaks from beyond the grave to his living love. In the final line of this he guides her to: ‘Cueillez dès aujourd’hui les roses de la vie’ (Gather the roses of life today). To the noble eighteenth-century French viewer, holding the rose would thus have been understood as a sign that Marie Thérèse had chosen to go on living life to the full despite the sadness of her widowhood, which is denoted both by her veil and the dead rose at her feet. Given this, and the beautifully frothy robe à la française that she wears, it is likely that this portrait dates to circa 1769-70.
At this date, with the death of Maria Leszczyńska, it was suggested that the lovely young widow might marry Louis XV; however, this was a match that neither she nor her father-in-law desired. Instead, she went on to become one of the closest confidents of his daughter-in-law, Marie-Antoinette, who in 1775 appointed her to the position of Surintendante de la Maison de la Reine, the highest ranked lady-in-waiting to the Queen. Despite being later replaced as the Queen’s favourite, Marie Thérèse remained unfailingly faithful to her mistress. Though she had been nursing her father-in-law at the outbreak of the Revolution in October 1789, she returned to be with the Court. The night of the Flight to Varennes in June 1791, Marie-Antoinette left a letter instructing Marie Thérèse to meet the Royal party in Brussels. After failure of this plan, Marie Thérèse, who had succeeded in reaching England and had taken up residence in Bath, decided that it was her duty to return to Paris. Finally, in August 1792 she was taken from the Tuileries and imprisoned. There followed the September Massacres, during which the mob stormed the prisons, set up a people’s tribunal and summarily executed the prisoners. Due to her refusal to swear hatred to the king and queen in her trial, Marie Thérèse was lead into the streets where she was killed by the mob. Her body was never found and there is no tomb to her name.