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拍品专文
This imposing, three-quarter-length portrait of 40 year-old Jean-Frédéric de la Tour-du-Pin Gouvernet (1727-1794) reflects in his pose, attire and bearing, the noble status of this influential, but ill-fated military leader of the ancien régime.
La Tour-du-Pin had a long and distinguished career in the French military, one that would span over 40 years. Born in Grenoble in 1727, he was the son of Jean de la Tour-du-Pin Gouvernet, comte de Paulin, and Suzanne de La Tour de La Cause. He served as a colonel of the Bourbon Regiment of Calvary in 1741, captain in 1744, colonel of the Grenadiers de France in 1749, was made Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis in 1757, colonel of the Régiment de Guyenne in 1761, and was appointed colonel of the Piedmont Regiment and Maréchal de camp in 1762. He was recognized for his valor in battle in the bloody, eight-year War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). In 1755, he married Marguerite Cécile Séraphine de Guinot, daughter of the Marquis de Monconseil, which gave him the viscounty of Ambleville, a village in the Aquitaine southeast of Cognac.
Van Loo’s portrait – which is signed and dated 1767 – portrays his sitter dressed not in military uniform, but in a fashionable and opulent civilian costume befitting his status as a nobleman of wealth and position. He wears a magnificent gold-embroidered blue frock coat and breeches with a silver waistcoat embellished with gold and blue and belted with a sash around the waist.
Standing in front of a classical stone column and balustrade with a red silk curtain billowing behind him, La Tour-du-Pin gestures outward to his land and estate beyond our view.
In the 1780s, La Tour-du-Pin’s rank and importance in the French military command continued to grow. In 1781, he rose to Lieutenant General, then to Commander-in-Chief of the provinces of Aunis, Saintonge Poitou and Lower Angoumois in 1787. In December of that year he was elevated to Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the King. He entered political life less than two years later, when he was elected to the Estates General on 26 March 1789 to represent the nobility of Saintonge (the district in which Ambleville is located). His time in the legislative body was brief, however, as Louis XVI appointed him Minister of War on 4 August 1789. As the 40th Secretary of State for War, he served until 16 November 1790, commanding the military during the first year of the revolutionary uprising. He was widely credited with restoring discipline in the army and received the congratulations of the National Assembly. As the political situation in Paris became more unstable and violent, he came under attack by members of the Jacobin faction and offered his resignation to the king, which was refused. Two years later, Louis XVI recalled him to government, and in October 1793, he defended Marie-Antoinette during her trial, in which the verdict was almost certainly preordained. The trial lasted two days, the queen was convicted of high treason and other crimes and executed on 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution. La Tour-du-Pin followed her to the scaffold six months later, on 28 April 1794, age 67.
La Tour-du-Pin’s son, Frédéric-Séraphin, comte de Gouvernet, later Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, followed his father in a career as an army officer and diplomat, serving as aide du camp to the marquis de Lafayette and French ambassador to the Dutch Republic in The Hague. His wife, the former Henriette-Lucy Dillon, is celebrated today for her posthumously published memoir, Journal d’une femme de 50 ans (‘Memoirs of a Woman of Fifty Years’), a remarkable first-hand account of her life through the Ancien Régime, the Revolution and the Imperial court of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Aitken portrait is among the finest of Louis-Michel Van Loo’s final years. Born into a dynasty of painters – which included his father, Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, who trained him; his uncle, Carle Van Loo, who served as First Painter to the King; and younger brothers, François Van Loo and Charles-Amedée Van Loo – Louis-Michel studied in Turin and Rome with his father before becoming court painter to Philip V of Spain in 1736 and a founding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1752. He returned to Paris in 1757 as painter to the French court, executing many of the most memorable and iconic portraits of Louis XV. His masterpiece, the famous portrait of the philosophe and Enlightenment critic Denis Diderot (1767; Louvre, Paris) was painted in the same year as the Aitken portrait, and two years before the magnificent double-portrait of the Marquis de Marigny and his Wife (1769; private collection. Sold, Christie’s New York, 21 May 1998).
La Tour-du-Pin had a long and distinguished career in the French military, one that would span over 40 years. Born in Grenoble in 1727, he was the son of Jean de la Tour-du-Pin Gouvernet, comte de Paulin, and Suzanne de La Tour de La Cause. He served as a colonel of the Bourbon Regiment of Calvary in 1741, captain in 1744, colonel of the Grenadiers de France in 1749, was made Chevalier of the Royal and Military Order of Saint Louis in 1757, colonel of the Régiment de Guyenne in 1761, and was appointed colonel of the Piedmont Regiment and Maréchal de camp in 1762. He was recognized for his valor in battle in the bloody, eight-year War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). In 1755, he married Marguerite Cécile Séraphine de Guinot, daughter of the Marquis de Monconseil, which gave him the viscounty of Ambleville, a village in the Aquitaine southeast of Cognac.
Van Loo’s portrait – which is signed and dated 1767 – portrays his sitter dressed not in military uniform, but in a fashionable and opulent civilian costume befitting his status as a nobleman of wealth and position. He wears a magnificent gold-embroidered blue frock coat and breeches with a silver waistcoat embellished with gold and blue and belted with a sash around the waist.
Standing in front of a classical stone column and balustrade with a red silk curtain billowing behind him, La Tour-du-Pin gestures outward to his land and estate beyond our view.
In the 1780s, La Tour-du-Pin’s rank and importance in the French military command continued to grow. In 1781, he rose to Lieutenant General, then to Commander-in-Chief of the provinces of Aunis, Saintonge Poitou and Lower Angoumois in 1787. In December of that year he was elevated to Lieutenant-General of the Armies of the King. He entered political life less than two years later, when he was elected to the Estates General on 26 March 1789 to represent the nobility of Saintonge (the district in which Ambleville is located). His time in the legislative body was brief, however, as Louis XVI appointed him Minister of War on 4 August 1789. As the 40th Secretary of State for War, he served until 16 November 1790, commanding the military during the first year of the revolutionary uprising. He was widely credited with restoring discipline in the army and received the congratulations of the National Assembly. As the political situation in Paris became more unstable and violent, he came under attack by members of the Jacobin faction and offered his resignation to the king, which was refused. Two years later, Louis XVI recalled him to government, and in October 1793, he defended Marie-Antoinette during her trial, in which the verdict was almost certainly preordained. The trial lasted two days, the queen was convicted of high treason and other crimes and executed on 16 October 1793 at the Place de la Révolution. La Tour-du-Pin followed her to the scaffold six months later, on 28 April 1794, age 67.
La Tour-du-Pin’s son, Frédéric-Séraphin, comte de Gouvernet, later Marquis de la Tour-du-Pin, followed his father in a career as an army officer and diplomat, serving as aide du camp to the marquis de Lafayette and French ambassador to the Dutch Republic in The Hague. His wife, the former Henriette-Lucy Dillon, is celebrated today for her posthumously published memoir, Journal d’une femme de 50 ans (‘Memoirs of a Woman of Fifty Years’), a remarkable first-hand account of her life through the Ancien Régime, the Revolution and the Imperial court of Napoleon Bonaparte.
The Aitken portrait is among the finest of Louis-Michel Van Loo’s final years. Born into a dynasty of painters – which included his father, Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, who trained him; his uncle, Carle Van Loo, who served as First Painter to the King; and younger brothers, François Van Loo and Charles-Amedée Van Loo – Louis-Michel studied in Turin and Rome with his father before becoming court painter to Philip V of Spain in 1736 and a founding member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in Madrid in 1752. He returned to Paris in 1757 as painter to the French court, executing many of the most memorable and iconic portraits of Louis XV. His masterpiece, the famous portrait of the philosophe and Enlightenment critic Denis Diderot (1767; Louvre, Paris) was painted in the same year as the Aitken portrait, and two years before the magnificent double-portrait of the Marquis de Marigny and his Wife (1769; private collection. Sold, Christie’s New York, 21 May 1998).