BY FRANCOIS MARTIN (1761-1804), 1789

Born in Grenoble, Francois Martin won the Grand Prize for sculpture at the old academic school for Paris between 1772 and 1775. The original plaster portrait of Francoise-Therese de Choiseul-Stainville, later Princess Joseph of Monaco, signed and dated 1788, was formerly in the collection of David Weill. A marble version, dated 1788, once belonged to the Giacometti collection, and then to George Blumenthal (his sale, Galerie Georges Petit, 1-2 December 1932, lot 102). A marble bust of 1789 is in the Musee Cognac-Jay. The tradional identity of the sitter, who would have been twenty-two in 1789, has been questioned by some scholars.