.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
The portraits of Antoine Pesne provide the most vivid illustration of the spirited courtly culture of Prussia in the siècle des Lumières. Imbued with the joyful lightness of touch and vibrant rich colour which are the hallmarks of the Rococo, they serve as a veritable pantheon of the great and the good in Enlightenment Germany: not only Frederick I (Potsdam, Sanssouci), Frederick William I, Sophia Dorothea (Schloss Charlottenburg) and Frederick the Great as Crown Prince (Burg Hohenzollern and the magisterial portrait in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin), but also Fürst Joseph Wenzel of Liechtenstein, Fürst Leopold of Anhalt-Dessau, Herzog Ferdinand of Brunswick (all Schloss Charlottenburg) and other leading lights.
In addition to this impressive roster of sitters, Pesne also produced a number of more informal, intimate portraits, the most interesting of which are perhaps his self-portraits and portraits of his family. In 1909, Paul Seidel published a group of family portraits which had remained unknown to scholarship before that date, descending in the family of the artist's second daughter, Marie (b. 1713), who had married Jacques Azémar de Rège in 1737. This group, which included portraits of his father, the painter Thomas Pesne (c. 1653-1727) and his wife, Ursule-Anne Dubuisson (1696-1784), appeared shortly after Seidel's article in an auction at Rudolph Lepke's, in March 1910. That auction included two pendant pairs depicting the artist's grandchildren, the son and daughter of Marie de Rége; the present pictures, and a second set described as 'Die Enkelkinder in späteren Jahren' ('The grandchildren in later years'), showing the grandson with a canary and the granddaughter with a pug. This second pair is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (Berlin-Dahlem inv. nos. 2104-5; after 1961, inv. nos. and 5/61).
The relationship between the present pair and that in Berlin constitutes one of the most interesting and touching examples of family portraiture on the part of any artist. Pesne, who was clearly devoted to his wife and daughters (as the portraits of them in Schloss Charlottenburg and the Gemäldegalerie attest), must have painted the present portraits of his grandchildren in circa 1743, when they might have been about five or six. The Berlin pair must have been painted almost ten years later, showing the grandchildren as self-aware adolescents or preadolescents. The compositional similarity between the two pairs, especially in the pose of the grandson, solicits a direct comparison; one feels that Pesne was taking delight in seeing his grandchildren grow from infancy into adolescence, and the gift of the two sets to his daughter provided her with a perennial record of this happy transition, full of promise for the future.
The Hon. Langton Iliffe (1908-1996) married Renée Merandon du Plessis in 1938, and succeeded his father, the publisher Edward Iliffe, as 2nd Baron Iliffe in 1960. In 1952 the future Lord and Lady Iliffe had effected one of the great country house rescues of the post-war period when they decided to buy Basildon Park in Berkshire, 'one of the masterpieces of the architect John Carr of York', built 1776-1783. Over the ensuing years Basildon Park was lovingly restored and adorned with a fittingly elegant collection of pictures and furniture, before being given, in 1981, to the National Trust.
Please note that the present work is being offered for sale pursuant to a settlement agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Paul von Schwabach. This settlement agreement resolves the dispute over ownership of the work and title will pass to the successful bidder.
In addition to this impressive roster of sitters, Pesne also produced a number of more informal, intimate portraits, the most interesting of which are perhaps his self-portraits and portraits of his family. In 1909, Paul Seidel published a group of family portraits which had remained unknown to scholarship before that date, descending in the family of the artist's second daughter, Marie (b. 1713), who had married Jacques Azémar de Rège in 1737. This group, which included portraits of his father, the painter Thomas Pesne (c. 1653-1727) and his wife, Ursule-Anne Dubuisson (1696-1784), appeared shortly after Seidel's article in an auction at Rudolph Lepke's, in March 1910. That auction included two pendant pairs depicting the artist's grandchildren, the son and daughter of Marie de Rége; the present pictures, and a second set described as 'Die Enkelkinder in späteren Jahren' ('The grandchildren in later years'), showing the grandson with a canary and the granddaughter with a pug. This second pair is now in the Gemäldegalerie, Berlin (Berlin-Dahlem inv. nos. 2104-5; after 1961, inv. nos. and 5/61).
The relationship between the present pair and that in Berlin constitutes one of the most interesting and touching examples of family portraiture on the part of any artist. Pesne, who was clearly devoted to his wife and daughters (as the portraits of them in Schloss Charlottenburg and the Gemäldegalerie attest), must have painted the present portraits of his grandchildren in circa 1743, when they might have been about five or six. The Berlin pair must have been painted almost ten years later, showing the grandchildren as self-aware adolescents or preadolescents. The compositional similarity between the two pairs, especially in the pose of the grandson, solicits a direct comparison; one feels that Pesne was taking delight in seeing his grandchildren grow from infancy into adolescence, and the gift of the two sets to his daughter provided her with a perennial record of this happy transition, full of promise for the future.
The Hon. Langton Iliffe (1908-1996) married Renée Merandon du Plessis in 1938, and succeeded his father, the publisher Edward Iliffe, as 2nd Baron Iliffe in 1960. In 1952 the future Lord and Lady Iliffe had effected one of the great country house rescues of the post-war period when they decided to buy Basildon Park in Berkshire, 'one of the masterpieces of the architect John Carr of York', built 1776-1783. Over the ensuing years Basildon Park was lovingly restored and adorned with a fittingly elegant collection of pictures and furniture, before being given, in 1981, to the National Trust.
Please note that the present work is being offered for sale pursuant to a settlement agreement between the current owner and the heirs of Paul von Schwabach. This settlement agreement resolves the dispute over ownership of the work and title will pass to the successful bidder.