Six French Paintings from the National Gallery

Irish Arts Review

Six French Paintings from the National GalleryAuthor(s): Fionnuala CrokeSource: Irish Arts Review Yearbook, (1991/1992), pp. 119-127Published by: Irish Arts ReviewStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20492678 .

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IRISH ARTS REVIEW

SIX FRENCH PAINTINGS FROM THE NATIONAL GALLERY

The purpose of this short interim report is to make known some results

of recent research on the collection of French paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland. Although not intended as a complete survey of current investigations in this area of the Gallery's collection, it does highlight some of the most import ant findings which have come about in recent years.

In 1962, W G Marshall offered his por trait of Philippe Roettiers ('the only work by Rigaud in the country'), for sale to the National Gallery, expressing his wish for the picture to stay in Ireland'. On pur chase, the portrait was catalogued as by Hyacinthe Rigaud until in 1980 it was recognised as the work of Nicolas de Largilli&re2. This reattribution is more convincing, and, as will be discussed below, this portrait may now be regarded as an important early work.

The sitter's name is inscribed on the portrait PHILIPPE ROETTIERS/GRAVEUR GNAL DE/MONNOYES DE S.M. IMPERIAL. (Philippe Roettiers/Engraver-General of the mint of his Imperial Majesty). This allows us to identify him as Philippe (II) Roettiers,

medallist, who was born in Antwerp some time during or before 1640 (since he was christened on the 13 September of that year), and who died in 1718. He was the third and youngest son of Philippe Roet tiers, goldsmith and medallist, who was active in his native Antwerp.

In 1661 the three sons, John, Joseph and, subsequently, Philippe, of this veritable dynasty in the world of engrav ing were invited to England by Charles II to work at the English mint. According to

Horace Walpole, their father had lent money to Charles during his exile in the Low Countries (1656-60) who, in turn, had promised employment for his three sons3.

Philippe (II) Roettiers was officially connected with the English mint as an Engraver from at least 1670 to 1684, though he was absent temporarily in the Low Countries from about 1673 to 1679. On 10 February 1674 he married Jeanne Marie de Mangelaer, by whom he had two sons who followed in the profession of

medallists, Philip (III) and Francis. It seems he was still in London on 3 Nov ember 1685 (when Francis was born), although he was nominated Engraver

General of the mint of the King of Spain in the Low Countries on 4 December 1684. On 5 August 1686, he took the oath

In researching the collection of seventeenth and eighteenth

century French paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland,

Fionnuala Croke proposes some revised attributions.

as Engraver of the Antwerp mint. He held the two posts simultaneously with a salary of 4000 livres, and was lodged at the government's expense4. While in England Philippe produced a

number of interesting medals. In this por trait he appears to be holding the so called 'Liberty of Conscience' medal, which shows the bust of Charles II of England. Signed Philip Roti. F., the actual medal is undated, but from the combina tion of Liberty and Faith on the reverse, it is thought to refer to the King's celebrated

Declarations of Liberty of Conscience, dated 15 March 16725. George de Lastic dated the Dublin picture 1680-856. He compared it with Largilliere's portrait of Lebrun in the Bayerische Staatsgemalde sammlungen, Munich.7 When Largillir&es candidacy for the Royal Academy was accepted in- March 1683, he was asked to submit a portrait of Lebrun, the

Academy's Director and premier peintre du roi. The Munich portrait is considered a preparatory study for the reception piece8. Indeed, the pose of Philippe is virtually that of Lebrun in reverse; Lebrun's right elbow rests on the lower curve of the oval frame and his head is turned and his eyes look directly at the viewer while, with his left hand, he indi cates the medal that had been presented to him by the King at the time of his departure for Flanders in 1667. Above all, the arrangement of the sitter within the oval framework is treated in the same way in both portraits.

If the inscription is contemporary with the portrait, the Dublin work should date to sometime after December 1684. This

would also accord well with the date de Lastic proposed. However, in 1685, Roet tiers would have been at least forty-five years old, which seems somewhat old judging from the appearance of the sitter in our portrait. Around thirty-five would be a more acceptable age, which would in dicate a date of 1675-80. Two other fac tors, however, need to be considered, the first is the inscription; the second, the date of the medal Philippe holds. The inscription may simply have been added

later, something not unusual in eight eenth-century portraits. This would then explain why Philippe is holding an English medal in a portrait which appears to commemorate his new position for the

King of Spain. The date of the medal also lends support to a proposal of an earlier date for the painting. One hesitates to propose any date earlier than 1680 for a portrait by Largilliere, since the earliest known portrait by him is that of Jean Baptiste Tavernier (Braunschweig, Herzog Anton-Ulrich-Museum) which was exe cuted by 1679. On the other hand, there is no doubt that many of his early works

have been lost. So when would Largilliere have painted

Philippe Roettiers? Largilliere was in England from January 1675 until just after 21 May 1679, a period when Philippe was sporadically absent in the Low Countries. It is not known how often Philippe travelled between England and his native country during the period 1673-79 but the possibility that he sat for Largilliere in

England during this time cannot be ex cluded. In a reference of 1694 Largilliere said that he had known Joseph Roettiers for eighteen years, four of those in Eng land9. One may presume that he also knew Joseph's two brothers in London. It should be noted that Joseph left England for Paris early in 1679 and late in 1682 he

was made Engraver General there. The 1699 Salon included, 'Deux Portraits de

M. de Largillierre. M. Rotier Graveur general des monnoyes de France. Madame sa femme' This is believed to refer to a por trait of Joseph, now lost, but which we know from Vermeulen's engraving of 1700 (copy in the Bibliotheque Nationale (N2

Roettiers)). And, around 1715, Largilliere also painted John Roettier's youngest son, Norbert, and his wife (Fogg Art

Museum). '0 Until recently, another portrait in the

Gallery's collection was believed to have been painted by Largilliere. In the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition organis ed by Sir Hugh Lane during the winter of 1902 - 03 a Portrait of a Lady was exhibited as a Portrait of Lady Marshall by Largil li&rel. When the painting was purchased by the National Gallery shortly after, the identity of the sitter could not be substan tiated, and curiously no date was sug gested for the painting until 198512. This may imply that there was some difficulty in placing the work within Largilliere's oeuvre. Nonetheless, the

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attribution remained unquestioned until early 1990 when Dominique Breme sug gested an attribution to Alexis-Simon Belle (1674-1734)'3, and Fabienne Camus, who is preparing the catalogue of Belle's work, concurred"4. In the absence of any recent literature on Belle, her cata logue will be a welcome aid. The drawing and the relief of the face, the rather stiff pose and the decorative appearance of the drapery prompt Camus to propose a date of around 1700 for this portrait.

It is fair to say that Belle was not very imaginative in inventing new com positions. The same rather stiff bearing characterises a number of his female por traits, for example, the Portrait of a Lady in a recent Christie's sale"5. What he lacks in originality, however, he makes up for in facility. The Dublin portrait is an ex tremely fine work, notable for the lively execution and the fresh, animated features of the sitter's face. Indeed, the former attribution to Largilliere was a compliment to Belle's fine technique in rendering the textures of the red velvet gown, with its gold embroidery detail, and of the white satin cloak.

After Belle's death his family responded to some questions asked by the Academy

which serve as a record to protect his memory'6. As one might expect, their answers tend to be rather favourable to the artist. According to them he not only excelled by the delicacy of his brush but created a perfect resemblance. Moreover, it would seem that the more than passing similarity to Largilliere was desired by Belle; a little later his family commented

'. . il n'avoit que les yeux pour decouvrir les beautes repandues dans les ouvrages de Rigaud, Lemoine, de Largiliere (sic) et autres, ses contemporains'.

Of around the same date are the two pic tures which may here be introduced as the

work of the seventeenth century French painter Joseph Parrocel (1646-1704). Raymond Keaveney was the first to re cognise the stylistic similarities between two Indian Lion Hunts then catalogued as

English School, eighteenth century, and two pictures purchased by the National

Gallery, London, in 1982. The London paintings represent a Boar Hunt/Allegory of the Continent of Europe and Hawking Party/Allegory of the Continent of Asia by Joseph Parrocel. They were identified by contemporary critics as part of a commis sion made for Louis XIV shortly before 1700'7. The commission originally com

prised five paintings, these being two more lost hunting scenes (to make up The Four Continents (Les Quatre Parties du

Monde)) and La Foire de Bezons in Tours. Famous in his own day as a painter of

battle scenes, Joseph studied with Jacques Courtois (il Borgognone) in Rome where (according to Dezallier d'Argenville) he also studied the work of Salvator Rosa.18 Etienne Parrocel tells us that Joseph con sidered 'l'effet d'un tableau comme la partie la plus essentielle'; he sought to catch the spectator's imagination, and hold his attention by using carefully controlled tricks of light and by bold, spirited com positions. 19

The Dublin pictures depict, more cor rectly, a Lion Hunt and Hunters at Rest.

The first shows the moment when the lion is finally trapped. Stumbling on a fallen horse and its unfortunate rider, the beast is faced on all sides by the hunters' poised weapons. Horses, lion, dog and hunters are all caught up in a swirling mele of movement, noise and drama. Schnapper has noted the evident influ ence of Rubens on Parrocel20. Here, the National Gallery's own Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt, after Rubens, permits a visual comparision2". In the distance more hunters still pursue their prey. The second painting is calmer; at the end of the day, the victor proudly presents his catch to the lady in oriental dress reclin ing on a rock. Her maid servants appear a little more excited or disturbed at the sight of the two dead animals. An exotic flavour is suggested by the landscape dot ted with palm trees, the oriental dress and the Persian rug. Traditionally called In dian Lion Hunts, these paintings may well have been intended as scenes of Africa and perhaps part of an unknown series representing the continents22. With the lamentable lack of records

pertaining to the formation of the collec tion of the Earls of Milltown we know nothing as yet of the provenance of the Lion Hunt and its pendant before the beginning of the nineteenth century. They are included in the list of the prin cipal pictures hanging at Russborough house drawn up by Neale in 1826, al though Neale does mention in his intro duction that 'The basement story (sic) consists of a large Hall, . . and seven superb rooms en suite, ... containing a Collection of Pictures, selected in Italy by the great-grandfather of the present Earl of Milltown . '23 Neale makes no

attempt to identify the artist, nor does the author of the 'Catalogue of Pictures . . . at Russborough' of 1863.24 In the 'Deed of Gift', drawn up at the time of the transfer to the National Gallery they were listed as by William Hodges (1744 1797)25. When one puts aside Parrocel's battle or military scenes, a limited group of works can be distinguished which con sequently have tended to be misattribut ed (usually given to a later generation of the Parrocel family). These include the Four Continents commission, La Halte d'un Cavalier (Musee de Riom) and the Chasse au Sanglier (Aix-en-Provence). The two Dublin paintings clearly belong to this category. The verve and dash of the hunting scene indicate that these are mature works and may be dated around 1700. They are characterised by Parrocel's spirited brushwork, rich colours and con trasting areas of light and shade, the last a reminder of Dezallier d'Argenville's note (in the margin of the manuscript of his

Memoirs) that when Parrocel first went to Italy he painted 'dans le gout du

Caravage' 26. A third French portrait has undergone

a subtle but important change of attribu tion. The portrait of John Henry Fitz

maurice, later 2nd Marquis of Lansdowne and Earl of Shelburne (1765-1809) was catalogued as a Copy after Franqois-Xavier Fabre, an attribution based on a literal interpretation of the inscription the pic ture bears in the lower right hand corner: John Marquis of Lansdown (sic)/Copy Fabre Florence 1795. Throughout his father's marquessate, John Henry was styled Earl of Wycombe, the title he held when this portrait was painted. On inheriting his father's title, he married Maria Arabella, widow of Sir Duke Gifford, of Castle. Jordan, Co. Meath, who seems to have been his mistress for some years. Harriet, Lady Bessborough writing in May 1805, about some recent weddings says: 'The only extraordinary one is the present Ld. Landsdowne and Ld. Gifford-a Vulgar Irish woman near fifty and larger than

Mrs Fitzherbert . . . I suppose it is point d'honneur, for she has lived with him publicly as his Mistress for some years last'27. John Henry had an undistinguish ed career, particularly when compared

with his father and his half brother, Henry, the third Marquess, who became Chancellor of the Exchequer when aged only thirty. He travelled widely as a young man however, and took a strong interest

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in political events. No doubt Fabre's republican tendencies appealed to John

Henry, who was one of the few English men to stay in Paris throughout the Reign of Terror, and kept his father informed of happenings there28. Indeed his republi can sympathies later got him into trouble with the government in Ireland at the time of the 1798 rebellion. Writing to the

Abbe Morellet in 1802, his father states 'I am very happy in both my sons. I have been uneasy about Uohn Henry's) long absence from home, but I find that he im proves considerably in respect to talents and that his mind strengthens. He lives in perpetual pursuit of information, and his mind appears constantly employed, which makes him happy, and what else are we to look for?'.29

It may have been the Earl of Bristol who introduced Fabre to Lord Wycombe in Florence. Fabre was forced by anti

Republican feeling in Rome to move to Florence, where he arrived early in 1793. Once there he had to decide whether or not he should return to France. Hubert Robert advised him to stay in Italy, as revolutionary Paris had become so diffi cult for artists.30 He followed Robert's advice and indeed remained there for the next thirty years! In Florence, Fabre was faced with the problem of earning a living from his painting. Philippe Bordes attri butes Fabre's initial success to his friend ship with the poet Vittorio Alfieri and his

mistress Louise, the Countess of Albany, both of whom had pro-Revolutionary sympathies.3' Indeed, for Alfieri, the op position to tyrants was a predominant theme in his lyrics. Fabre painted the first in a series of portraits of Alfieri in July 1793, and taught drawing to the Countess.32 Through this friendship Fabre met many foreign residents eager to

acquire paintings as souvenirs. Above all, it was due to English patronage that his career rapidly expanded.33 The Earl of Bristol returned in 1794, and may also have introduced Fabre to Lord Holland (who arrived in Florence in the winter of 1793-94). Fabre painted both Lord Holland and Lord Wycombe in 1795 and again the following year.

Lord Wycombe's name appears in a list of works executed by Fabre for Lord Holland, dated 17 April 1796, 'Notes des differents effets appartenant a Mylord Holland, dont je me delare depositaire, et que je lui expedierai & son premier ordre'34. Fabre mentions 'le portrait de Mylord

Wicombe, avec sa bordure, paye', then 'un autre portrait de Mylord Wicombe, et celui de Mylord Holland, avec leur bordure, a Md

Windham, payes' Fabre, therefore, paint ed two portraits of Wycombe, one of which was destined for Wyndham, the

After Peter Paul Rubens, Hippopotamus and Crocodile Hunt, 24 x 32.8 cm. (NGI cat. no. 1198)

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Pierre-Charles Tremolieres, Triumph of Amphitrite, 99 x 131 cm. (NGI cat. no. 1656)

English ambassador in Florence. There is a replica of the Dublin work in

Bowood, Wiltshire, home of the present Lord Lansdowne (Trustees of Bowood Collection). It is signed and dated, and inscribed John Marquis of Lansdown (sic) and has similar dimensions to the Dublin picture.35 Both works are of high quality.

Moreover there can be little doubt but that the Dublin painting is by Fabre himself. It is here proposed that the Bowood picture is the first portrait refer red to above, and that the Dublin picture is a copy painted by Fabre for Wyndham.

This would certainly explain the inscrip tion on the latter work.

Fabre painted Lord Wycombe a third time in 1795. A third portrait of Wy combe was included recently in a sale at

Sotheby's, also signed and dated Florence 179536. This is a small oval bust and creates quite a different image of Wy combe who, this time, looks directly out at the viewer. In the Dublin and Bowood portraits Wycombe is presented as a self assured young man, in control of his en vironment, holding a book to remind us of his learning. The pose is a little stilted, but Fabre is more confident than in earlier portraits and the table no longer serves as a prop to avoid problems of perspective.37

Wycombe appears younger than in the oval portrait, his features less heavy, the face less full. It is more likely that this

more complete, more formal, and perhaps more idealised portrait is that replicated for the Ambassador.

Finally, brief mention may be made of

another work from the Milltown Collec tion of paintings presented to the Na tional Gallery in 1902. Not listed by

Neale, the Triumph of Amphitrite was catalogued as Noel Coypel (with an inter rogative mark) in the Deed of Gift of 1902. Since then the attribution has been tossed between Noel and Noel-Nicolas

Coypel, until 1989, when Pierre Rosen berg suggested an attribution to Pierre Charles Tremolieres (1703-39)38.

Born in Cholet in 1703, Tremolieres was in Paris by 1719 where he became a pupil of jean-Baptiste van Loo. He met the Comte de Caylus who seems to have kept a watchful eye on the young artist's education and early career. In 1726 he won second prize in the Academy's Prix de Rome. Two years later he left for Rome,

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remaining there for the next six years, a contemporary of Blanchet and Subleyras. Just six days before he left for France, Tremolieres married Isabelle Tibaldi. Subleyras would later (in 1739) marry her sister Maria Felice Tibaldi. Back in Paris, Tremolieres participated in the decora tion of the Hotel Soubise (now the Na tional Archives) in 1737, and in the same year he was received into the Academy. Already in the summer of 1738 he was ill, and he died the following year of a 'maladie du poumon', only thirty-six years

of age.39 As a consequence of his early death few

works can be ascribed with certainty to Tremolieres. In 1973 an exhibition which sought to bring together all his known work was held in the Mus&e Cholet. It

may be noted that the catalogue of lost paintings includes an Amphitrite et l'Amour, known from Fessard's engraving (announced in the Mercure de France of

October 1739). Of greater interest here however is the following entry, a Triomphe d'Amphitrite40. Now unknown, this pic ture was sold in 1777 at the sale of the

Prince de Conti, lot 706 bis: ' . . grande composition faite d la presto et d'un faire tres savant. Toile. Haute 2 Pieds Largeur 2 Pieds 6 pouces " (i.e. c. 97.5 x 114 cm), 'acquis par l'Abbe Raynouard pour 810 livres.' Could this be the picture which was later ac quired by the Milltown family? Its dimen sions (99 x 131 cms) do not exclude this possibility. The cited painting is describ ed as 'faite a la presto et d'un faire tres savant' Stylistically the Dublin picture

accords well with Tremolieres' paintings dated 17 36-38, but the execution would indeed appear to be more rapid than, for example, Tragedy and Comedy (Mus&e Cholet) and closer to the ceiling decora tions of the Hotel Soubise (1737).

The Tr&molieres attribution is convinc ing, and, if it can be sustained, will be an important contribution to the small oeuvre of this artist.

Fionnuala Croke

Fionnuala Croke is a Curator in the National Gallery of Ireland, where she is in charge of Exhibitions. She has already contributed to several Gallery publications and is currently preparing the catalogue of French seventeenth and eighteenth century paintings.

_NOTES_

1. National Gallery Archives (NGIA); letter

from W G Marshall dated 6 December 1962.

2. NGIA; letter from Georges de Lastic dated

27 October 1980. De Lastic wrote then 'Le

mod?le represent? est certainement le fils

a?n? du graveur de m?dailles et monnaies,

Joseph Roettiers (1635-1703) . . .'. De Lastic

published the painting in 'Propos sur Nicolas

de Largilliere en merge d'une exposition, Revue de L'Art, no. 61, 1983, p.75 (illus.).

3. H Walpole, Anecdotes of Painting in England, 2nd ed., vol.2 (1862), p.578. See also Jean

Bingen, Acad?mie Royale de Belgique. Classe

des Beaux-Arts. M?moires. Tome Vlll. Fascicole

l. Les Roettiers. Graveurs en Medaille des Pays Bas M?ridionaux, Brussels 1952, p. 12.

4. Louis Forrer, Biographical Dictionary of Medallists, vol. V London 1912, entry

pp. 187-90. 5. See Medallic illustrations of the History of Great

Britain and Ireland, (British Museum 1907), ' plate LVI, no. 6. The dies of this medal are in

the British Museum.

6. NGIA; letter of 27 October 1980.

7. de Lastic, op. cit., 1983

8. Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait, exhibition catalogue, Mus?e des Beaux-Arts,

Montreal, 1981, p. 184. 9. Bingen, op. cit., p. 20.

10 See Anna-Lena Eldh Wastberg, 'A Largilliere

portrait at the Fogg Art Museum', Gazette des

Beaux-Arts, (May-June 1958) pp. 321-28.

11. Royal Hibernian Academy, Winter Exhibition

of Old Masters of the Early English and French

Schools, 1902 ?

03. Catalogue sixth edition, no. 54.

12. A date of around 1715 was proposed in

Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Ireland, exhibition catalogue, National

Gallery, London 1985 no. 14. 13. NGIA; letter from Dominique Br?me dated

8 February 1990.

14. NGIA; letter from Fabienne Camus dated

26 January 1990: 'In agreement with Mr D

Br?me, I think this (portrait) has been

painted by Alexis-Simon Belle.'

15. Christie's, London, 26 October 1990, lot 54. 16. Ed. by L Dussieux et al, M?moires in?dits sur

la vie et les ouvrages des membres de l'Acad?mie

Royale de peinture et de sculpture publi?s d'apr?s les manuscrits conserv?s a l'Ecole imp?riale des

Beaux-Arts, vol. 2, Paris 1854-56, pp. 233-35.

17. See Maurice Segoura, Eighteenth Century French Academic Art, dealer's catalogue, New

York, 1979, pp. 9-14. 18. Dezallier d'Argenville, Abr?g? de la vie des plus

fameux peintres, 1st ed., Paris 1745; see also

Antoine Schnapper, 'Quelques Oeuvres de

Joseph Parrocel', La Revue des Arts, IV-V,

1959, p. 163.

19. Etienne Parrocel, Monographie des Parrocel, Marseille 1861, p. 21.

20. Schnapper, op. cit., 1959, p. 176. 21. [NGI cat. no. 1198] although not an exact

copy, this picture reproduces, on a much

smaller scale, one of Rubens' most famous

hunting scenes, the Hippopotamus and

Crocodile Hunt (Alte Pinakothek, Munich) of

around 1617. cf. David Oldfield, Later Flemish

Paintings in the National Gallery of Ireland,

(forthcoming), pp. 112-13.

22. In a later interpretation of the Four

Continents, Charles Parrocel interpreted Africa as a lion hunt. See Segoura, op. cit.,p. 11.

23. J P Neale, Views of the Seats of Noblemen and

Gentlemen in the United Kingdom, 2nd series, vol. 3, London 1826; listed in the Second

Room.

24. A Catalogue of Pictures belonging to The Earl of Milltown at Russborough, Dublin 1863; again

listed in the Second Room.

25. NGI A; Deed of Gift of the Milltown

Collection, nos. 317 and 318.

26. See note 18.

27. The Complete Peerage of England, Scotland,

Ireland, Great Britain and the United Kingdom, vol. 3, Alan Sutton 1982, entry no. 439, footnote b.

28. Lord Edward Fitzmaurice, Life of William Earl

of Shelburne, vol. 3, London 1876, p. 484. 29. Ibid. p. 564.

30. Letter from Robert to Fabre, published by F Boyer: 'Jean-Joseph de Laborde, Protecteur

de F. -X. Fabre', Bulletin de la Soci?t? d'Histoire

de l'Art Fran?ais. Ann?e 1954, Paris 1955,

p. 220; cited by Philippe Bordes, 'Fran?ois Xavier Fabre, Peintre d'Histoire ?

II', The

Burlington Magazine, March 1975, p. 155, note 1.

31. Louise Maximilienne Caroline (1752 ?

1824),

daughter of Prince Gustav Adolph of

Stolberg-Gedern, married Charles Edward, Earl of Albany, last of the Stuarts, in 1772.

She met Vittorio A lfieri in Florence in 1777

and after a legal separation from her husband

lived with the poet. 32. After Alfred's death in 1803 the Countess

lived with Fabre. See Fabre's portrait of the

Countess in the Uffizi, illustrated with

accompanying entry in the exhibition

catalogue Firenze e Vlnghilterra. Rapporti Artistici e Culturali dal XVI al XX Sec?lo.

Palazzo Pitti, Florence, 1971, no. 24. 33.Laure Pellicer, 'Le Peintre Fran?ois-Xavier

Fabre (1766-1837)', Th?se de doctorat d'Etat, Universit? de Paris IV, 4 vols., 1982, p. 79.

34. Holland Papers, conserved in the British

Museum, fol. 52, cf. Pellicer, 1982, catalogue no. 43a. Pellicer discusses the commission for

Wycombe's portrait but was unaware of the

existence of the Dublin work. She knew what

must be the Bowood picture (discussed later) from an unidentified photograph in the Witt

Library. 35. NGIA; letter from The Earl of Shelburne

dated 15 September 1989. It is worth noting that the inscription on the Dublin portrait

was interfered with at a later date; the word

Copy had been overpainted for obvious reasons and was revealed during cleaning in

1970. 36. Sotheby's, London, 14 November 1990, lot 56.

37. Pellicer, op. cit. p.93. 38. Verbally to the writer, June 1989.

39. Exhibition catalogue, Mus?e de Cholet,

(1973), p. 16.

40. Ibid., p. 81.

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Six French Paintings from the National Gallery