Flemish country and from a visit he had made to England the love of
moist landscape, where the colors in the multiplied prism of the tiny
suspended drops take on their real depth and splendor. Music and trees,
the whole of Watteau is in them. The sound does not interrupt the
silence, but rather increases it. Barely, if at all, a whispered echo
reaches us from it. We do indeed see the fingers wandering from the
strings: the laughter and the phrases exchanged are to be guessed from
bodies bending forward or turning backward and from fans that tap on
hands. The actors in the charming dramas are at a distance from their
painter and are dispersed in the depths of the open spaces. Watteau
fears to come near them, to penetrate their mystery; for to see them
too close would destroy the aërial veil that trembles between them and
himself. He caresses them only with his delicate tones that hover here
and there as would some bee from the north flying about in the damp
forests or under the lights of the _fête_, among the powdered
gold of the hair, the rose of the costumes, the bluish, milky haze,
the flower-sprinkled moss, the grass on which rest skirts and mantles
of silk and satin, and the nocturnal phosphorescence given to jewels
and velvets by the gleam of moonlight and the flare of waving torches.
It is the irised air which makes the marble statues seem to quiver,
which gives agitation to the sprightly and piquant faces, movement to
the fingers plucking guitars, and to delicate fine legs in stockings
of transparent silk. Watteau never comes near the scene: the vision
is as distant as an old dream. Observe it in detail. The structure
of the figures--solid, moving, and substantial--makes them appear as
if on the plane of man. Watteau’s little personages are as large as
his conception of them: he paints with the breadth, the fire, and the
freedom of Veronese, of Rubens, of Velasquez, and of Rembrandt.”
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Charles A. Wimpfheimer_
LA DANSE
--_Antoine Watteau_]
Antoine Watteau, born at Valenciennes, Oct. 10, 1684, was turned
adrift by his father, a tile-maker, and he went to Paris, where he
gradually became a fine draughtsman. He entered the studio of Claude
Gillot (1673–1722), well known for his mythological pictures, his
_Chinoiserie_, his _fêtes galantes_, his _singerie_, and his buffoonery
of the Italian Comedy. Watteau soon surpassed his teacher and left
him to study for a short time with Claude Audran (1658–1734). In 1717
Watteau became a member of the Academy; in 1719 he visited England; and
in 1721 he died at Nogent, near Paris.
The de Goncourts have summed up his qualities so well that no excuse is
needed for placing their analysis here:
“It is doubtless owing to the early decorative work executed by
Watteau that he acquired a taste for the theatre of which in after
days his cunning brush drew so many pleasing representations, so many
curious pictures and that he so often depicted the Italian and French
Comedians, those friends and intimates of his brush, whose motley
family he painted in that beautiful and striking picture which is a
companion to _Comédiens Français_. He painted their companion picture
when Madame de Maintenon drove them out of France in 1697; he painted
their amusements, their nocturnal amours and serenades, their holidays,
their open-air sports. Mezetin and Columbine appear on a hundred
panels. But there would be little reason to thank the chance that led
Watteau at the outset of his career to work under an obscure decorator
if he had only copied the silken folds of their costumes and had not
conceived the idea of using these Trans-alpine types as the poetic
habitants of his _scènes galantes_ and _scènes champêtres_. In fact, by
the introduction of these Merry Andrews, these gracious mummers, these
elegant incarnations of dainty laughter and fine comedy, these men and
women whose materiality is so vague and their reality so veiled beneath
symbol and myth, the compositions of the painter no longer seem like
pictures of a real world. The greensward of his _scènes galantes_
seems peopled with mythical beings to whom Watteau’s imagination and
lightness of touch have left nothing of the actors who served as his
models; and we have the illusion of looking into a verdant country
inhabited by creations of whim and fancy.”
MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON.
_Jean Marc Nattier_
(_1685–1766_).
_Collection of
Mr. Edward J. Berwind._
Nolhac calls the portrait of Madame Bonier de la Mosson “_une des plus
belles de ses Dianes ou de ses Nymphes chasseresses_.” The picture (51
× 38 inches) was exhibited in the Salon of 1742. From the Collections
of Debatz, Reims, and Tamvaco, Cairo, it passed into that of Mr.
Berwind. This handsome lady, radiant in her leopard skin and flowers,
was the wife of M. Bonier de la Mosson, who was also painted by Nattier
four years later (1746), in his “cabinet of curiosities,” for M. Bonier
de la Mosson was one of those amateur scientists of the age. In his
rich _hôtel_ in the rue Saint Dominique in Paris, he had a laboratory
and an “_apothicairerie_,”--his pots, bottles, mortars and pestles
and crucibles surrounded by furniture of the most superb description.
The portrait of M. Bonier de la Mosson was in great contrast to that
of his beautiful wife. The portrait of the gentleman is a fine work,
but the portrait of the lady shows Nattier in his most characteristic
aspect. Here is the _real_ Nattier, for Nattier specialized in what
was called in his day the “historic portrait,”--that is to say the
sitter was represented as a mythological, or historical, personage with
all the attractive symbolical and picturesque accessories. Nattier’s
vogue during his lifetime was very great and all the aristocratic
and fashionable ladies wanted, above all things, to have themselves
perpetuated as Dianas, Floras, Hebes, and Auroras. Consequently, many
old families in France cherish a fine allegorical portrait of a
handsome ancestress caught as it were on Mount Olympus with the gods
and goddesses.
“_Nattier l’élève des Graces,
Et le peintre de la beauté_”
is a tribute in some verses in 1727.
“It may seem fantastic,” Sir Walter Armstrong writes, “to bracket
Van Eyck with a painter like Nattier, but a little consideration
will show that in a sense they belonged to the same faction, that is
to say that if Van Eyck had lived in Paris in 1760, he would have
conceived a portrait much in the same way as Nattier, and so _mutatis
mutandis_ with the Frenchman. The conscious desire of both was
to _reproduce_ their sitter, choosing a moment when he or she
was thinking of nothing in particular, and surrounding him with his
familiar properties carefully marshalled into a design.”
Jean Marc Nattier came of a family of artists. His father, Marc
Nattier, was an Academician, his mother, Marie Courtois, was a
miniature-painter of reputation, and his brother, J. B. Nattier, was
also a painter. Jean Marc Nattier was born in Paris, March 17, 1685,
and was trained at a very early age by his father. Admitted to the
classes at the Académie, he won a prize in drawing and at the age
of fifteen was given a stipend. In 1715 Nattier went to Holland,
where Peter the Great was staying, and painted the Czar, the Empress
Catherine II, and several members of the Russian Court; but he declined
all inducements to follow the Czar to Russia and returned to Paris.
In 1718 Nattier was received at the Académie and, thenceforth, devoted
himself to portraiture. In 1724 he married Mademoiselle de la Roche,
daughter of an old _mousquetaire_ of the King; and it was not long
before he became official painter of the court and, in consequence, the
most fashionable portrait-painter in France.
Nattier was made assistant professor of the Académie in 1745 and full
professor in 1752. Every year brought him more fame and more honors
until his death in Paris in 1766.
Nattier depicts the delicate, charming, and aristocratic beauty of
the early Louis XV period and has the gift of expressing also grace and
alluring qualities. Louis XV had Nattier make replicas of many of the
court portraits most pleasing to him, which he sent to European Courts;
and this explains how it is that so many splendid Nattiers are hanging
to-day in European galleries.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_
MADAME BONIER DE LA MOSSON
--_Jean Marc Nattier_]
Nattier has a unique place as the painter of beautiful women, yet,
although he painted individuals, his work, taken as a whole, presents
the French Society woman of the Eighteenth Century with her peculiar
charm, elegance, and _finesse_, appearing in his portraits as
she really was,--experienced, flexible, high-bred, gay, witty, and
accomplished, graceful in manner and in speech, perfect in the arts of
the toilet and in dress, conscious of her charm, and tactful, polished,
and fascinating in society.
LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION AS FLORA.
_Jean Marc Nattier_
(_1685–1766_).
_Collection of
Mr. A. W. Erickson._
This masterpiece is also known as the “Chaponay Nattier,” from having
been long in the Collection of the Marquis de Chaponay in Paris.
Previously the picture graced the Collection of la Comtesse Armand née
Gontoud-Biron and subsequently that of M. Nicolas Ambatielos in London.
Many critics regard _La Marquise de Baglion_ as the finest French
portrait of the Eighteenth Century. Its first appearance in public was
at the Salon of 1746 and it was shown in the Paris Exhibition of the
One Hundred Masterpieces in 1892 (No. 28) and in the Paris Exhibition
of the One Hundred Portraits of Women of the French and English Schools
in 1909 (No. 85).
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. A. W. Erickson_
LA MARQUISE DE BAGLION
--_Jean Marc Nattier_]
The picture (53⅛ × 41¼ inches) is signed and dated 1746, hence it
was shown as soon as it was finished. The subject of the picture,
Angélique Louise Sophie d’Allouville de Louville was born Feb. 10,
1710, daughter of Charles Augustin d’Allouville, Marquis de Louville,
Gentleman-in-waiting to the King of Spain, Lieutenant-General of his
armies and Governor-General of Courtray. Her mother was Hyacinthe
Sophie de Bechameil de Nointel. On June 10, 1733, Angélique Louise
Sophie was married to Pierre François Marie de Baglion, Comte de la
Salle. After twenty-three years of marriage the Marquise de Baglion
died in 1756. Her only daughter, Françoise Sophie Scholastique de
Baglion (who was married to Denis Auguste Grimoard de Beauvoir,
Marquis du Roure, Colonel of the Grenadiers of France of Saintonge, of
Dauphine, and later brigadier), was lady-in-waiting to the Dauphine
(Marie Antoinette), and was a great friend of Madame de Pompadour, whom
she usually accompanied on her visits to Choisy.
In this exquisite picture, La Marquise de Baglion, an unusually
beautiful woman, who has great intelligence in her face, as well as
beauty, appears in a very _décolleté_ dress, which shows her dazzling
neck and shoulders. Her aristocratic hand, long and beautifully shaped,
lightly holds a blue scarf--“Nattier blue”--filled with lovely flowers.
Flowers are as nearly important as the Goddess of Flowers herself; and,
consequently, Nattier has shown himself here the equal of any painter
who specialized in flowers.
The picture was much talked of in its day at Versailles; in the
_boudoirs_; at the toilet of the marquise; and at the _petits soupers_
of the King, Louis XV. Many poets have sung its praises. One of the
latest and best tributes is by Roger Milès called a _Madrigal for a
Portrait of the Marquise de Baglion painted by Nattier_. In reading it
we cannot help regretting that the beautiful Flora could not have read
these sympathetic verses:
_MADRIGAL_
(_Pour un Portrait de la Marquise de Baglion peint par Nattier_)
_Dès le matin, dans la rosée, au fond du parc,
La Marquise s’en fut, pour saluer l’Aurore,
Et les cerfs inquiets qui sommeillaient encore,
Pour Diane la prenant, des yeux cherchaient son arc._
_Mais elle n’était pas la Déesse farouche
Et, si parfois ses yeux ont pu lancer ces traits,
Ses victimes devaient y trouver des attraits,
Tant le sourire avait de douceur sur sa bouche._
_Elle allait simplement, fière de sa beauté,
Humilier les fleurs écloses pour lui plaire,
Sachant leur jalousie aimable et sans colère,
Ames où des parfums chantent la volupté._
_Et voici que ses mains cruelles et câlines
Ont fait leur choix parmi la fraicheur des buissons,
Pour les encourager, de leurs nids, les pinsons
Raillaient à plein gosier les branches orphelines._
_Et de ses belles mains déborde son butin.
Sa cueillette fut bonne, et ses touffes fleuries.
Suffiraient à parer la mousse des prairies
Quant la Nature dit sa prière au Matin._
_Sur un banc, souriante, elle s’est reposée,
Une rose retient l’épaulette qui fuit,
Et le Zephyr qui passe en balayant la nuit,
S’attarde à la splendour de sa gorge rosée._
_L’étoffe la possède entre ses plis légers,
Des joyaux précieux se serrent à sa hanche,
Et, sur un chiffonné de mousseline blanche,
Ses genoux par un tissu bleu sont assiégés._
_Mais un charme divin s’epanouait en elle,
Et l’on tremble, en voyant son pur rayonnement,
Que Dieu pour nous ravir à cet enchantement,
Ne fasse palpiter à son épaule ... une aile._
LA CAMARGO.
_Nicolas Lancret_
(_1690–1743_).
_Collection of the
Hon. Andrew W. Mellon._
This painting came into this country directly from the Collection of
the Emperor of Germany, having long hung in Potsdam Palace, “Sans
Souci,” near Berlin. It was originally in the Collection of the
Prince de Carignan in Paris, from whom it was acquired in 1744 by the
Count von Rothenburg, Prussian Ambassador, for Frederick the Great
(1712–1786), to adorn his castle at Rheinsberg.
The picture is in oils on canvas (30 × 41¾ inches). We have here a
typical scene of French Eighteenth Century life, laid in a beautiful
park of emerald swards, lovely trees, and graceful foliage, a
“terminal” figure of a Muse in the middle distance, and a fountain
tossing its spray at the extreme right. Mademoiselle Camargo and her
partner occupy the left centre of the picture dancing to music played
by a small orchestra on the left. Seated and standing around them
beneath the trees are groups of interested spectators; and among them
at the extreme left Lancret has painted his own portrait. He is wearing
a dark mantle and a _biretta_, and looks directly toward the observer.
The dancer, who gives the name to the picture, is the celebrated Marie
Anne de Cuppi de Camargo, born in Brussels in 1710. The Princess de
Ligne became interested in her and sent her to Paris at the age of
ten to be trained for a dancer. Under Madame Prevost, a dancer at the
Opéra, her progress was so rapid that she made her _début_ at the Opéra
at the age of seventeen, when her extraordinary grace and her wonderful
clothes caused her to be acclaimed as a star. Through the lessons of
Blondy and Dupré she perfected her talents and became the most famous
Parisian dancer of her time. A _liaison_ with the Comte de Clermonte
Abbé of Saint-Germain-des-Prés caused her to leave the Opéra in 1734;
but she returned in 1740 and regained her former triumphs. This was
the time when Lancret painted some wonderful portraits of the great
_danseuse_, including the fine picture presented here. Mademoiselle
Camargo retired permanently in 1751 and died in Paris in 1770.
[Illustration:
_Collection of the Hon. Andrew J. Mellon_
LA CARMARGO
--_Nicolas Lancret_]
Nicolas Lancret was born in Paris in 1690 and died there in 1743. He
was a pupil of Pierre d’Ulin and Claude Gillot; but he adopted Watteau
as his model. Indeed, his close imitations of Watteau estranged the
latter. Lancret, however, won a great reputation for his beautiful
sense of composition, his fine design, and his charming color. He
was elected a member of the French Academy of Painting in 1719. His
landscapes are always delicate and romantic, and as a painter of
_Fêtes galantes_ he almost equals Watteau and Pater.
LE DUO.
_Nicolas Lancret
(1690–1743)._
_Collection of
Mr. and Mrs. Emil J. Stehli._
At first glance we might take this painting for a Watteau, for
Lancret has shown in it the same appreciation of park scenery, leafy
and fresh foliage, charming figures of grace and refinement, and,
even more particularly, the suggestion of music. We seem to hear the
liquid, silvery, cool notes of the flute and the sweet, clear voice
of the pretty young lady who is singing from a book of music while
the young gallant looks over her shoulder and plays his part in the
duet. The costumes are lovely; the young lady is dressed in white and
the flute-player wears a brownish-red suit. The flute-player’s pose
is interesting: all his weight is placed on his right foot. Note his
hands: they are properly placed on the holes of his instrument, which
he is holding as a musician. The French have always been superlative
flute-players and it was only natural that Lancret would select a
capable musician for his model. We can make a safe guess that the music
we are hearing from these musicians is an air by Rameau, whose operas
and ballets were enjoying great vogue when this picture was painted.
The work, oils on canvas (19¾ × 16¾ inches), belonged to the Collection
of Sir William Knighton, Bart., and came from that of Mr. Pitt Rivers
of London to the present owner, Mr. Emil J. Stehli of New York.
Comparing Lancret with Watteau, Eugène Langevin writes:
“First the style of the master was not adopted by him in its entirety;
he modified it in accordance with his own disposition; he has played
some of Watteau’s melodies, but in a lower key and with a slower
movement. It is _conversations galantes_ rather than _fêtes
galantes_ that he paints. He seems to feel that he does not possess
the fire, the caprice, the vivacity, the imagination, and the supreme
poetic distinction that are required for _Departures for the
Enchanted Isle_. He halts half-way. Where Watteau painted sumptuous
and impassioned eclogues, Lancret portrays rural amusements, richly
adorned and at the same time frolicsome as he had seen them on the
boards. Watteau revels in the most magical of fictions: he is the
Shakespeare, the Aristophanes of Art.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Emil J. Stehli_
LE DUO
--_Nicolas Lancret_]
“Like Watteau, Lancret broke with the academic traditions of the day,
which were all for reddish or brown tints: he acknowledged a wholesome
horror of burnt colors. And if he lacks that distinction which his
master owed to his constant practice of Flemish and Venetian Art and
to his own natural gifts, if he cannot produce those glowing and
_rutilant_ tonalities full of golden sheen, those rich colors, and
those subtle harmonies of infinitely delicate beauty, he, at least,
possessed a palette both rich and refined.”
UNE FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE.
_Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
(1695–1736)._
_Collection of
Mr. Jules S. Bache._
This brilliant picture, painted in 1733, the height of the Regency
period, came from the Collection of Lady Carnarvon, having been
bequeathed to her by Alfred Charles de Rothschild of Seymour Place,
London.
The scene is laid in a romantic landscape with the ruins of an old
_château_ and other ancient buildings surrounded by beautiful, feathery
trees. Upon the green sward groups of men, women, and children have
gathered to enjoy themselves in various ways. The merry assemblage,
dressed in brilliant costumes of delightful colors, charmingly
harmonized and contrasted, are dancing, feasting, making love, and
watching actors and mountebanks perform. Even two little dogs in the
foreground have partaken of the general gaiety. The movement, _brio_
and general _joie de vivre_ make this a veritable panorama of the
Eighteenth Century. The picture is also noteworthy for being the
largest ever painted by Pater.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_
UNE FÊTE CHAMPÊTRE
--_J. B. J. Pater_]
Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater was born at Valenciennes in 1695, the son
of a wood-carver who appreciated his son’s talent, taught him what
he could, and then took him to Paris, where he became a pupil of
his fellow-townsman, Watteau. The irritable temper of Watteau caused
a separation; but in 1721 Watteau sent for Pater to come to him at
Nogent-sur-Marne and gave him daily instruction.
Pater was very “modernistic” in his time, for in 1728 he was received
into the Academy as a member of the new class of “_peintres de sujets
modernes_.”
Pater was entirely absorbed in his art. He rarely left his studio,
formed no friendships, painted all day and every day, and gave himself
no pleasures. His feverish industry coupled with his parsimonious
living--he was haunted by the fear of poverty in old age--at last told
upon him and he died in Paris in 1736.
Pater is a very close follower of Watteau in subject and composition as
well as in his charming and delicate color.
UNE FÊTE GALANTE.
_Jean Baptiste Joseph Pater
(1695–1736)._
_Collection of
Mr. Edward J. Berwind._
It is interesting to compare this picture with the _Fête Champêtre_
preceding it. We have two characteristic examples of Pater’s work. In
the _Fête Champêtre_ we look upon a large gathering and a miscellaneous
crowd. In the picture represented here we have a more intimate group.
There are certain elements in this picture that suggest Watteau; others
that suggest Lancret; and still others that show us that the later
Boucher and Fragonard did not deign to take a few ideas from Pater. The
picture is very individual. The colors are soft and delicate--“pastel”
tints we like to call them to-day--pale blues, and pinks, and yellows,
and rich mauves, contrasting beautifully with the exquisite green of
the foliage. Pater never produced a more artistic background, with its
distant hills and picturesque buildings. The painting came from the
Wertheimer Collection, London, to the present owner.
[Illustration:
_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_
UNE FÊTE GALANTE
--_J. B. J. Pater_]
LA SERINETTE.
_Jean Baptiste Siméon Chardin
(1699–1779)._
_Collection of the late
Mr. Henry Clay Frick._
Madame de Pompadour, whose taste in art was always superlatively good,
was the first owner of this charming picture, which has passed through
many notable collections. The work is known under three titles: _La
Serinette_ (the Bird-Organ); the _Education of a Canary_; and _The
Diversions of a Lady_. According to tradition this lady is Madame
Chardin, wife of the painter. The sitting-room gives us an idea of
her varied occupations and it would appear that she has just left her
tapestry-work to give her canary a singing-lesson. The bird is seen
in a cage, which stands on a little table near the window, and Madame
Chardin is turning the handle of the bird-organ. We would like to know
the tune the little music-box produces. Both as regards subject and
treatment the picture is a masterpiece. Jean Guiffrey considers the
work most charming and admires the way all the many accessories are
brought into perfect harmony. “It would be impossible to find,” he
says, “a more correct design and a better color scheme and tonality.”
Chardin sent this picture to the Salon of 1751 and again to that of
1755. After Madame de Pompadour’s death _La Serinette_ passed into
the notable Collections of Monsieur de Vandières, director of the
Royal Buildings; the Marquis de Menars, Madame de Pompadour’s brother
(sold in 1783); Baron Denon, Director of Museums (sale 1826); Count
d’Houdetot (sale 1859); Duke de Morny (sale 1865); Mr. G. du Tillet of
Paris; and, finally, to the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick.
The picture was shown in 1860 at the Exposition of the Association for
the Mutual Relief of Artists, Painters, Sculptors, and Architects (No.
92).
Chardin was one of the greatest colorists of the French School and one
of the greatest painters of the Eighteenth Century. Few painters have
equalled him in his broad and free style and in his luminous effects of
color and light.
[Illustration:
_Collection of the late Mr. Henry Clay Frick_
LA SERINETTE
--_J. B. S. Chardin_]