MARIE-THÉRÈSE DE NOIRETERRE (1760-1819)

Pierre-Noël Le Cauchois, facing right in black coat, waistcoat, embroidered white frilled lace jabot, white-powdered short wig

Details

MARIE-THÉRÈSE DE NOIRETERRE (1760-1819)
Pierre-Noël Le Cauchois, facing right in black coat, waistcoat, embroidered white frilled lace jabot, white-powdered short wig
signed and dated 'M.^l^l^e de Noireterre. 86.' (lower right)
26 in. (62 mm.) diam., gilt-metal mount

Provenance

Gautereau Collection (in 1932).

Literature

E. Bellier de La Chavignerie, 'Les artistes franais du XVIIIe siècle oubliés ou dédaignés', Revue universelle des Arts, 1865, p. 40-41.
P. Lespinasse, La miniature en France au XVIIIe siècle, Paris and Brussels, 1929, p. 138.
L. Finet, 'Marie-Thérèse de Noireterre', La Revue de l'Art, April 1932, p. 174, illustrated p. 173 (erroneously identified as Abbé Rechez).

Exhibited

Paris, Salon de la Correspondance, 1786.

Engraved

by Louis-Jacques Cathelin (1739-1804).

Lot Essay

In the 1786 Salon de la Correspondance, Mademoiselle de Noireterre exhibited both the present miniature of the barrister Jean-Noël Le Cauchois (b. Rouen 1740) and that of his most famous client, Marie-Franoise Salmon. The latter, a servant in Caen, had been accused of poisoning with arsenic her 86 years old master Mr de Beaulieu in 1781. In 1782, the Court of Caen condemned her to be burnt alive but the Royal Family ordered the execution to be suspended. Jean-Noël Le Cauchois succeeded in defending Marie-Franoise Salmon who was finally discharged and released in 1786, the year the present miniature was painted and exhibited. A dilettanto poet, Le Cauchois himself was a member of the Salon de la Correspondance.

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