Marie Antoinette’s Personal Portraitist and the Unlikely Painting of an Indian Ambassador

Marie Antoinette’s Personal Portraitist and the Unlikely Painting of an Indian Ambassador



This January, Sotheby’s celebrates trailblazing female artists from the 16th through the 19th century with The Female Triumphant, a group of masterworks offered across our Masters Week sales. In spite of institutional obstacles, talented women like Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun, Fede Galizia, and Elizabeth Gardner Bouguereau paved the way for future generations of artists everywhere. In this episode of Masterworks: Expert Voices, Old Master Paintings Specialist Calvine Harvey recounts the story of how Vigée Le Brun, the personal painter to Queen Marie Antoinette, used her royal connections to paint a striking portrait a visiting Indian ambassador. Painted in 1788, Vigée Le Brun’s monumental Portrait of Muhammad Dervish Khan has been unseen on the market for over a century and will be a highlight of this season’s Master Paintings Evening Sale. (30 January | New York)

Pour voir la vente :
http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/2019/master-paintings-evening-n10007.html?locale=en



DETAILS & CATALOGUING
Elisabeth-Louise Vigée Le Brun
PARIS 1755 - 1842
PORTRAIT OF MUHAMMAD DERVISH KHAN, FULL-LENGTH, HOLDING HIS SWORD IN A LANDSCAPE
signed and dated lower right: L. Vigée Le Brun / 1788
oil on canvas
88 3/4 by 55 1/2 in.; 225.5 by 136 cm.

PROVENANCE
Collection of the artist;
Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun (1748-1813), husband of the artist, Paris;
His estate sale, Paris, Constantin and Paillet, 23 May 1814, lot 81;
There acquired by Constantin for 112 fr.;
Lord Thomas Barnewall, 16th Baron Trimlestown (1796-1879), Charenton;
His sale, Charenton, at the home of Mrs. Cottin, 21 April 1872, lot 40;
Madame de B***;
Her sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 13 April 1893, lot 39;
Louis-Alexandre Marnier Lapostolle (1857-1930), Paris, by 1908;
Thence by descent until recently.

EXHIBITED
Paris, Salon, 1789, no. 79;
Paris, Palais du Louvre, Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs, Exposition de la Turquerie au XVIIIe Siècle, May – October 1911;
Château de Versailles, Deux Siècles d'Histoire de France, June – October 1937;
London, Victoria & Albert Museum, Encounters: the Meeting of Asia and Europe 1500-1800, 23 September - 5 December 2004;
Paris, Grand Palais, Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, 9 November 2015 – 11 January 2016, no. 53.

LITERATURE
E.L. Vigée Le Brun, Souvenirs de Madame Vigée Le Brun, Paris 1835-7, vol. I, pp. 59-62, translated by L. Strachey, New York 1989, pp. 24-25;
P. de Nolhac, L'oeuvre de Madame Vigée Le Brun, peintre de la Reine Marie-Antoinette, Paris 1908, pp. 78, 145, 166, reproduced;
W.H. Helm, Vigée-Lebrun 1755-1842: Her life, works, and friendships, London 1915, pp. 82-83, 194;
M. Brunet, “Incidences de l’ambassade de Tippo-Saïb (1788)” in Cahiers de la céramique, du verre et des arts du feu, 1961, p. 279, 283, cat. no. 19;
P. de La Vaissière and B. de Montgolfier, “Une tasse de Sèvres commémorant l’ambassade de Tipoo-Saïb,” in Bulletin du Musée Carnavalet, vol. XIV, no. 1, 1961, pp. 9-11, reproduced;
P. de La Vaissière and B. de Montgolfier, “Une tasse de Sèvres commémorant l’ambassade de Tipoo-Saïb,” in Bulletin du Musée