.jpg?w=1)
Lot Essay
CAPTIONS:
1) Frans Snyders, Flemish, 1579-1657, Boar Hunt, about 1625-30, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of John Templeman Coolidge, Jr. 17.322
Photograph (c) 2013 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
This composition was adapted by French artists, including François Desportes (1661-1743), contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Oudry
2) Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet, French, 1731-1797, after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, 1686-1755, The Fox's Surprise, engraving, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G261
Imaging Department (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College
3) Déjeuner de chasse du comte de Ségur devant le château de Romainville, Ecole française du XVIIIe siècle, Huile sur toile, 152 x 185 cm.
(c) Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. Nicolas Mathéus
A Hunting-Party Lunch
4) Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, 1686-1755, Dog Pointing Pheasants, dated 1748, oil on canvas
(c) By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London
5) Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793), Grand Huntsman of France
Christie's Images
Few objects represent the lives and tastes of their owners as well as this covered bowl, or écuelle, made for the duc de Penthièvre, Grand Huntsman of France. Born Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon (1725-1793), the duc was the son of the Comte de Toulouse, the legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, and through several inheritances, became one of the richest men in Europe. Through his uncle, the duc du Maine, another naturalized son of Louis XIV, Penthièvre inherited châteaux at Sceaux, Anet, Aumale, Dreux, and Gisors. From his father, he inherited the Hôtel de Toulouse, his Paris residence, and the château de Rambouillet, with its surrounding game-rich forests. Other châteaux that came into his possession were at Chanteloup, Amboise, Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, and La Ferté-Vidame. It is easy to imagine this écuelle, originally part of a travelling nécessaire de voyage, accompanying the duc de Penthièvre during the hunting season at his various châteaux and at Versailles, where he occupied a suite of apartments and commanded the royal hunt.
On his father's death in 1737, the twelve-year-old duke inherited numerous titles and positions, including Admiral of France, Marshal of France, and Grand Huntsman (Grand Veneur), an important position in the royal household. The iconography on this highly sculptural silver écuelle, based on hunting scenes by the artists Oudry and Snyders, strongly suggests that its use was reserved for the hunting-party lunches that were held in the fields and woods on hunting days. While Penthièvre owned vast amounts of family silver, including the famous Penthièvre-Orléans service that he inherited from his cousin the Comte d'Eu in 1775, this écuelle is a rare surviving example of one of his own commissions, as evidenced by the engraved coat-of-arms. His importance as a patron of metalwork is underscored by a listing in the Paris almanack of 1777, where a chaser established in the royal workshops at the Louvre is described as "Cizeleur de S.A.S. Monseigneur le Duc de Penthièvre." The majority of Penthièvre's silver does not survive, as he dutifully sent more than 30,000 ounces in objects to the mint to be melted for coinage in 1759 and again in 1790.
Penthièvre's position as sole heir to Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan allowed--indeed required--him to live in grand style, both privately and in his apartments at the royal residences of Fontainebleau, Marly, and Compiègne, in addition to Versailles. In 1744 he married Princess Maria Teresa d'Este of Modena, but after her untimely death in 1754 he began to withdraw from court life, preferring the company of men of letters, and spending the majority of his time at Sceaux and Rambouillet. Known for his generosity, he built charitable hospitals at Crécy, Les Andelys, and Rambouillet, and gave over 200,000 livres annually to the poor at the end of his life. It was his popularity as a philanthropist that spared him--unlike his cousin Louis XVI and his daughter-in-law the princesse de Lamballe--from the revolutionary murders taking place around him at the time of his death on March 4, 1793. His daughter and sole heir, the duchesse d'Orléans, was arrested a month later; some of her inherited possessions were seized and sold, and some were restituted to her. Interestingly, the Penthièvre-Orléans service, taken from her in 1794, was deemed as too fine to melt by the revolutionary government, who described it as "précieux par son exécution." It was returned to the duchesse and inherited by her son Louis Philippe, duc d'Orléans, later King of the French (see Royal French Silver, Sotheby's, New York, 13 November 1996). It seems likely, then, that the exceptional artistic quality of this écuelle was responsible for its survival.
1) Frans Snyders, Flemish, 1579-1657, Boar Hunt, about 1625-30, oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, gift of John Templeman Coolidge, Jr. 17.322
Photograph (c) 2013 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
This composition was adapted by French artists, including François Desportes (1661-1743), contemporary of Jean-Baptiste Oudry
2) Jacques Firmin Beauvarlet, French, 1731-1797, after Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, 1686-1755, The Fox's Surprise, engraving, Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Gift of William Gray from the collection of Francis Calley Gray, G261
Imaging Department (c) President and Fellows of Harvard College
3) Déjeuner de chasse du comte de Ségur devant le château de Romainville, Ecole française du XVIIIe siècle, Huile sur toile, 152 x 185 cm.
(c) Paris, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature. Nicolas Mathéus
A Hunting-Party Lunch
4) Jean-Baptiste Oudry, French, 1686-1755, Dog Pointing Pheasants, dated 1748, oil on canvas
(c) By kind permission of the Trustees of the Wallace Collection, London
5) Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon, duc de Penthièvre (1725-1793), Grand Huntsman of France
Christie's Images
Few objects represent the lives and tastes of their owners as well as this covered bowl, or écuelle, made for the duc de Penthièvre, Grand Huntsman of France. Born Louis Jean Marie de Bourbon (1725-1793), the duc was the son of the Comte de Toulouse, the legitimized son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan, and through several inheritances, became one of the richest men in Europe. Through his uncle, the duc du Maine, another naturalized son of Louis XIV, Penthièvre inherited châteaux at Sceaux, Anet, Aumale, Dreux, and Gisors. From his father, he inherited the Hôtel de Toulouse, his Paris residence, and the château de Rambouillet, with its surrounding game-rich forests. Other châteaux that came into his possession were at Chanteloup, Amboise, Châteauneuf-sur-Loire, and La Ferté-Vidame. It is easy to imagine this écuelle, originally part of a travelling nécessaire de voyage, accompanying the duc de Penthièvre during the hunting season at his various châteaux and at Versailles, where he occupied a suite of apartments and commanded the royal hunt.
On his father's death in 1737, the twelve-year-old duke inherited numerous titles and positions, including Admiral of France, Marshal of France, and Grand Huntsman (Grand Veneur), an important position in the royal household. The iconography on this highly sculptural silver écuelle, based on hunting scenes by the artists Oudry and Snyders, strongly suggests that its use was reserved for the hunting-party lunches that were held in the fields and woods on hunting days. While Penthièvre owned vast amounts of family silver, including the famous Penthièvre-Orléans service that he inherited from his cousin the Comte d'Eu in 1775, this écuelle is a rare surviving example of one of his own commissions, as evidenced by the engraved coat-of-arms. His importance as a patron of metalwork is underscored by a listing in the Paris almanack of 1777, where a chaser established in the royal workshops at the Louvre is described as "Cizeleur de S.A.S. Monseigneur le Duc de Penthièvre." The majority of Penthièvre's silver does not survive, as he dutifully sent more than 30,000 ounces in objects to the mint to be melted for coinage in 1759 and again in 1790.
Penthièvre's position as sole heir to Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan allowed--indeed required--him to live in grand style, both privately and in his apartments at the royal residences of Fontainebleau, Marly, and Compiègne, in addition to Versailles. In 1744 he married Princess Maria Teresa d'Este of Modena, but after her untimely death in 1754 he began to withdraw from court life, preferring the company of men of letters, and spending the majority of his time at Sceaux and Rambouillet. Known for his generosity, he built charitable hospitals at Crécy, Les Andelys, and Rambouillet, and gave over 200,000 livres annually to the poor at the end of his life. It was his popularity as a philanthropist that spared him--unlike his cousin Louis XVI and his daughter-in-law the princesse de Lamballe--from the revolutionary murders taking place around him at the time of his death on March 4, 1793. His daughter and sole heir, the duchesse d'Orléans, was arrested a month later; some of her inherited possessions were seized and sold, and some were restituted to her. Interestingly, the Penthièvre-Orléans service, taken from her in 1794, was deemed as too fine to melt by the revolutionary government, who described it as "précieux par son exécution." It was returned to the duchesse and inherited by her son Louis Philippe, duc d'Orléans, later King of the French (see Royal French Silver, Sotheby's, New York, 13 November 1996). It seems likely, then, that the exceptional artistic quality of this écuelle was responsible for its survival.