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Lot Essay
The portrait of Charles-Louis-August Fouquet is one of the most brilliant pastels by Maurice-Quentin de La Tour. It was exhibited by the artist at the 1748 Salon. By then, he was France's foremost portraitist, contributing fifteen pastel portraits to the Salon of that year. These not only included portraits of King Louis XV, his wife and the Dauphin, but also of France's three leading Maréchals: Belle-Isle, Saxe and Lowendal (the portraits of Louis XV and Marie Leczinska are now in the Louvre, as well as those of the Dauphin and of Saxe, while that of Lowendal is in a private collection; see C. Debrie and X. Salmon, op. cit., figs. 35-6, 37, 54 and A. Besnard, op. cit., no. 296, ill.). With this group of portraits, the most powerful figures in France all sat for La Tour at a key moment in political events. In August 1748, France was in the midst of preparing the peace treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, which was signed on October 18th. The treaty would end the wars of succession in Austria and had been achieved through the victories of the three great generals and Louis XV, all of whom were depicted by La Tour.
Charles-Louis-Auguste Fouquet, Count and later Duke of Belle-Isle was one of Louis XV's most important generals. Despite being the grandson of Louis XIV's disgraced Minister of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet, Charles-Louis-Auguste rose through the ranks of the French military. In 1741, he reached the highest military rank, that of Marechal. In the following years, his military victories in the wars of succession led to the elevation of his family’s title to Duke and Dutchess of Belle-Isle in 1748. He was made ministre d'État in 1756 and occupied the position until his death in 1761.
La Tour’s portrait of the Duke of Belle-Isle is a historical document of the crossing paths of two men at the peaks of their respective careers. La Tour chose to depict Belle-Isle in a conventional half-length pose, turned three-quarters towards the viewer. He is adorned with his various military decorations, including the badges of the chivalric orders of Saint Esprit and the Golden Fleece.
The skill of this portrait lies in La Tour's mastery at combining the authority and rank of the sitter with an immediacy in his direct glance, which makes Belle-Isle not only present but also very much alive. Indeed he looks out at the viewer with knowing eyes and an almost imperceptible, very faint smile - the expression of somebody conscious of his many achievements. In fact the fundamental quality of La Tour's art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their inner thoughts onto paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole' as he himself put it (see J. Turner ed., The Dictionary of Art, New York, 1996, p. 841). The style of this pastel is typical of La Tour; his broad and dynamic strokes applied freely, taking the use of pastels to the limits of their technical potential. He excels in rendering the opulence of Belle-Isle's velvet overdress, the intricateness of its golden embroideries, the shimmering quality of his satin sash and silk necktie, and the elaborate metalwork of his decoration.
Quentin de La Tour also made the portrait of Belle-Isle's second wife, Marie-Casimire-Thérèse-Geneviève-Emmanuelle de Béthune. While the Maréchal's portrait exudes all the swagger and confidence of a man of power, his wife's portrait is more subdued and elegant, albeit with all the accoutrements her status affords, and is an equal expression of the artist's virtuosity in this most difficult of media, pastel. The Maréchale is depicted half-length, sitting erect on a Louis XV fauteuil. She wears a sumptuous blue dress adorned with fur and lace trim, with a grosgrain ribbon tied at her neck. Each fold of lace and tuft of fur is delineated with individual strokes of pastel; the strong lines of pastel that define the Duke’s face are replaced instead with a soft, almost blurred quality that imbues the Maréchale with an impression of gentility. Her coiffure is a series of modest curls, and her gaze is direct with just a hint of a smile.
The two portraits have remained together for much of their history, often hung next to each other, as was the case when they were in Jacques Doucet’s collection, displayed in the Grand Salon of his apartment (see J. Trey, Jacques Doucet et Moïse de Camondo. Une Passion pour le XVIIIe Siècle, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée Nissim de Camondo, 2023). The two works were separated from 1992 until 2016 when Irene Aitken reunited them in her collection.
Charles-Louis-Auguste Fouquet, Count and later Duke of Belle-Isle was one of Louis XV's most important generals. Despite being the grandson of Louis XIV's disgraced Minister of Finance, Nicolas Fouquet, Charles-Louis-Auguste rose through the ranks of the French military. In 1741, he reached the highest military rank, that of Marechal. In the following years, his military victories in the wars of succession led to the elevation of his family’s title to Duke and Dutchess of Belle-Isle in 1748. He was made ministre d'État in 1756 and occupied the position until his death in 1761.
La Tour’s portrait of the Duke of Belle-Isle is a historical document of the crossing paths of two men at the peaks of their respective careers. La Tour chose to depict Belle-Isle in a conventional half-length pose, turned three-quarters towards the viewer. He is adorned with his various military decorations, including the badges of the chivalric orders of Saint Esprit and the Golden Fleece.
The skill of this portrait lies in La Tour's mastery at combining the authority and rank of the sitter with an immediacy in his direct glance, which makes Belle-Isle not only present but also very much alive. Indeed he looks out at the viewer with knowing eyes and an almost imperceptible, very faint smile - the expression of somebody conscious of his many achievements. In fact the fundamental quality of La Tour's art lies in his ability to suggest the temperament and psychology of his subjects by means of their facial expression, and thereby to translate their inner thoughts onto paper: 'I penetrate into the depths of my subjects without their knowing it, and capture them whole' as he himself put it (see J. Turner ed., The Dictionary of Art, New York, 1996, p. 841). The style of this pastel is typical of La Tour; his broad and dynamic strokes applied freely, taking the use of pastels to the limits of their technical potential. He excels in rendering the opulence of Belle-Isle's velvet overdress, the intricateness of its golden embroideries, the shimmering quality of his satin sash and silk necktie, and the elaborate metalwork of his decoration.
Quentin de La Tour also made the portrait of Belle-Isle's second wife, Marie-Casimire-Thérèse-Geneviève-Emmanuelle de Béthune. While the Maréchal's portrait exudes all the swagger and confidence of a man of power, his wife's portrait is more subdued and elegant, albeit with all the accoutrements her status affords, and is an equal expression of the artist's virtuosity in this most difficult of media, pastel. The Maréchale is depicted half-length, sitting erect on a Louis XV fauteuil. She wears a sumptuous blue dress adorned with fur and lace trim, with a grosgrain ribbon tied at her neck. Each fold of lace and tuft of fur is delineated with individual strokes of pastel; the strong lines of pastel that define the Duke’s face are replaced instead with a soft, almost blurred quality that imbues the Maréchale with an impression of gentility. Her coiffure is a series of modest curls, and her gaze is direct with just a hint of a smile.
The two portraits have remained together for much of their history, often hung next to each other, as was the case when they were in Jacques Doucet’s collection, displayed in the Grand Salon of his apartment (see J. Trey, Jacques Doucet et Moïse de Camondo. Une Passion pour le XVIIIe Siècle, exhib. cat., Paris, Musée Nissim de Camondo, 2023). The two works were separated from 1992 until 2016 when Irene Aitken reunited them in her collection.