拍品專文
Bougainville began his career in the Army, serving as aide-de-camp to Montcalm in Canada (1756-60) and rising to the rank of colonel. He served as aide-de-camp to M. de Choiseul-Stainville on the Rhine in 1761 and was awarded with two canons by Louis XV for his bravery.
At thirty-four, and with the coming of peace, he embarked on a naval career and led the first French expedition to the Pacific, leaving Nantes in 1766 as post-captain on the Boudeuse and making his most celebrated landfall on the uncharted island of Tahiti in 1768. He returned to France in 1769 after a voyage of two years and four months.
Nan Kivell and Spence listed nine engraved portraits of Bougainville (all of which post-date his return to France in 1769) but traced no contemporary paintings or drawings of the sitter (R. Nan Kivell and S. Spence, Portraits of the Famous and Infamous, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific 1492-1970, London, 1970, p. 37), omitting the oil Portrait of Bougainville from the collection of Baronne de Vazehles exhibited in Paris in 1962 (Musée de la Marine, Grands Voiliers autour du Monde, March-April 1962, 1962, no. 392).
At thirty-four, and with the coming of peace, he embarked on a naval career and led the first French expedition to the Pacific, leaving Nantes in 1766 as post-captain on the Boudeuse and making his most celebrated landfall on the uncharted island of Tahiti in 1768. He returned to France in 1769 after a voyage of two years and four months.
Nan Kivell and Spence listed nine engraved portraits of Bougainville (all of which post-date his return to France in 1769) but traced no contemporary paintings or drawings of the sitter (R. Nan Kivell and S. Spence, Portraits of the Famous and Infamous, Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific 1492-1970, London, 1970, p. 37), omitting the oil Portrait of Bougainville from the collection of Baronne de Vazehles exhibited in Paris in 1962 (Musée de la Marine, Grands Voiliers autour du Monde, March-April 1962, 1962, no. 392).