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拍品專文
Jean-Marc Nattier was the leading portrait painter of the Parisian beau monde in the middle of the eighteenth century. The son of an obscure portraitist and the younger brother of a history painter, Nattier was elected to the Académie Royale in 1718 as a history painter – his diploma piece is Perseus Changing Phineas to Stone in the museum in Tours – but soon turned to the more lucrative practice of portraiture. No artist was better able to convey the delicacy and charm of feminine beauty without sacrificing the grandeur and physical presence required in the depiction of great ladies. In his finest portraits, Nattier captured the subtle charms of plain-looking women, without losing a convincing likeness, and the intelligence and grace of beautiful women, without diminishing either their aristocratic status or their comely allure. Few painters have been as skilled in employing a swirl of satin ribbons, swaths of enveloping silk and billowing swags of velvet drapery to enliven a portrait with movement, energy and elegance.
Throughout Nattier's long career, his sitters were the grandest members of the French nobility and court of Louis XV, including Queen Marie Leczinska, the Marquise de Pompadour and the king’s daughters. The subject of the present portrait is Marie-Françoise-Rose de Larlan de Kercadio de Rochefort (1719-1785), the Marquise de Nétumières, daughter of Jules de Larlan, Baron de Rochefort (d.1722). A celebrated beauty, she married Charles-Paul Hays (1712-1762), the Marquise de Nétumières et du Chastelet, Viscomte du Besso, seigneur du Catuélan et de Rochers, heir of one of the oldest families in Brittany, on 23 June 1735. The couple had six children – three boys and three girls – three of whom died in infancy or early childhood. The Marquis de Nétumières was a descendant of the Sévigné family and he, his wife and children lived in Les Rochers in Brittany, near Vitré, the manor house (which still survives) of the Marquise de Sévigné (1629-1696); the celebrated correspondent often discussed the house in her famous Letters written to her daughter.
Nattier’s portrait of the Marquise de Nétumières, which is signed and dated ‘1748’, was painted when the sitter was about 30 years old, and many of its delights are particular to the artist’s sumptuous yet modest portrayal of her. Despite the agitated excitement of the little black hound barking on her lap, her expression conveys a calm and direct openness and intelligence, and an inviting warmth of personality that accounts for much of the painting’s appeal. The beautiful, nuanced rendering of fabrics, subtle palette of various dark blues – including ‘Nattier Blue’, the color that still carries the artist’s name – and chocolate browns, and the gently rendered fall of natural light all contribute to its allure. The warm sfumato that envelops the marquise heightens the creaminess of her complexion, creating soft atmospheric effects that emphasize her refined beauty and function as a metaphor for the sweet charm of the sitter’s character that her contemporaries often cited.
Two years after the marquise sat to Nattier, she was painted in pastel by Jean-Etiénne Liotard (1702-1789), the celebrated Swiss pastellist in his studio in Paris (fig.1). Although Nattier stressed the elegance and chic of his subject, Liotard’s spare portrait emphasizes her domestic character. Both artists memorably render the wide-eyed gentleness of her nature.
An anonymous miniature portrait of the marquise also survives and remains with one of her descendants; a hand-written inscription on the reverse indicates that it had belonged to her third son, Marie-Charles Hays, Comte de Nétumières (1758-1839).
Throughout Nattier's long career, his sitters were the grandest members of the French nobility and court of Louis XV, including Queen Marie Leczinska, the Marquise de Pompadour and the king’s daughters. The subject of the present portrait is Marie-Françoise-Rose de Larlan de Kercadio de Rochefort (1719-1785), the Marquise de Nétumières, daughter of Jules de Larlan, Baron de Rochefort (d.1722). A celebrated beauty, she married Charles-Paul Hays (1712-1762), the Marquise de Nétumières et du Chastelet, Viscomte du Besso, seigneur du Catuélan et de Rochers, heir of one of the oldest families in Brittany, on 23 June 1735. The couple had six children – three boys and three girls – three of whom died in infancy or early childhood. The Marquis de Nétumières was a descendant of the Sévigné family and he, his wife and children lived in Les Rochers in Brittany, near Vitré, the manor house (which still survives) of the Marquise de Sévigné (1629-1696); the celebrated correspondent often discussed the house in her famous Letters written to her daughter.
Nattier’s portrait of the Marquise de Nétumières, which is signed and dated ‘1748’, was painted when the sitter was about 30 years old, and many of its delights are particular to the artist’s sumptuous yet modest portrayal of her. Despite the agitated excitement of the little black hound barking on her lap, her expression conveys a calm and direct openness and intelligence, and an inviting warmth of personality that accounts for much of the painting’s appeal. The beautiful, nuanced rendering of fabrics, subtle palette of various dark blues – including ‘Nattier Blue’, the color that still carries the artist’s name – and chocolate browns, and the gently rendered fall of natural light all contribute to its allure. The warm sfumato that envelops the marquise heightens the creaminess of her complexion, creating soft atmospheric effects that emphasize her refined beauty and function as a metaphor for the sweet charm of the sitter’s character that her contemporaries often cited.
Two years after the marquise sat to Nattier, she was painted in pastel by Jean-Etiénne Liotard (1702-1789), the celebrated Swiss pastellist in his studio in Paris (fig.1). Although Nattier stressed the elegance and chic of his subject, Liotard’s spare portrait emphasizes her domestic character. Both artists memorably render the wide-eyed gentleness of her nature.
An anonymous miniature portrait of the marquise also survives and remains with one of her descendants; a hand-written inscription on the reverse indicates that it had belonged to her third son, Marie-Charles Hays, Comte de Nétumières (1758-1839).