Cocher du Pape (The Pope's Coachman)

Dominique Jacquot identifies the present panel among the twelve paintings depicting the costumes of Italy commissioned in 1751 by Abel-François Poisson (1727-1781), Director of the King's Buildings, Marquis de Vandières, better known by his later titles of Marquis de Marigny and Ménars, and as the younger brother of Madame de Pompadour (1721-1764) (loc. cit.). A letter dated 10 November 1751 from Jean-François de Troy to the Marquis, notes that Barbault had completed 'six of the twelve paintings you ordered ...These six paintings are: The Swiss of the Pope's Guard; The Pope's Coachman; The Hunter; The Frascatane; The Endowed Daughter; The Venetian ...' (op. cit., p. 83.). The paintings later passed to the Marquis de Marigny's traveling companion, the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713-1780), best known for his work on the Panthéon (originally the Church of Saint Genevieve) in Paris. The catalogue of his 1780 posthumous sale notes that some of the paintings did not bear Barbault's signature, and were instead attributed to Subleyras. The series of costumes became extremely popular, and Barbault capitalized on its success, executing a number of versions of each composition, introducing small variations each time. A second autograph version of Cocher du Pape, with alterations to the architecture, is now in the collection of the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon (inv. no. 1739).