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5 juillet 2012

French School, circa 1470, Profile portrait of Louis XI, King of France (1423-1483), wearing the collar of the Order of Saint Mi

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French School, circa 1470, Profile portrait of Louis XI, King of France (1423-1483), wearing the collar of the Order of Saint Michel.  Photo Sotheby's

oil on panel, painted surface: 36.5 by 22.2 cm.; 14 3/8 by 8 3/4 in. ESTIMATE 400,000-600,000 GBP. Lot Sold: 735,650 GBP

PROVENANCE: Said to have been presented by Louis XI (the sitter) to his maître d'hôtel, Rigauld d'Aurel (or Aureille), Seigneur and Baron de Villeneuve (1455-1517), Château de Villeneuvre-Lembron (Puy de-Dôme), Auvergne;
By descent to his son, Maximilien d'Aureille (d. 1572);
By descent to N*** d'Aureille and sold along with the Château de Villeneuve-Lembron to
Isaac Dufour (d. 1655), treasurer of France;
By descent to his son Lieutenant-General David Dufour (d. c. 1716);
By descent to his son Jean Dufour (d. 1753);
By descent to his son Jean-François Dufour de Villeneuve (d. 1781);
By descent to his son Jean-Baptiste Claude Dufour de Villeneuve who dies without issue November 1797;
By descent to his sister Catherine-Elisabeth Dufour de Villeneuve (d. 1814) who married Michel Pellissier de
Féligonde;
By descent to their son Michel Pellissier de Féligonde, deputé du Puy-du-Dôme;
By descent to his 2nd son Jacques-Michel Pellissier de Féligonde, advisor to the Court at Riom (this and all the above according to inscription on the reverse of the backing panel; see transcription, below);
Passion collection;
With Wildenstein, from circa 1935 until at least 1963;
Private collection.

EXHIBITED: New York, World's Fair (Pavillon de la France), Five Centuries of History Mirrored in Five Centuries of French Art, 1939, no. 36 (as Jean Fouquet);
New York, Wildenstein, The Great Tradition of French Painting, June - October 1939, no. 4;
New York, Wildenstein, Fashion in Headdress, 27 April - 27 May 1943, no. 4;
New York, Wildenstein, French Art Benefit for American Aid to France, December 1946;
Denver, The Denver Art Museum, Art of the Middle Ages, 10 December 1950 - 11 February 1951;
São Paulo, Museo de Arte, O retrato na França, January 1952, no. 1;
Dallas, Museum of Fine Arts, Six Centuries of Headdress, 3 April - 1 May 1955, no. 1;
New York, Wildenstein, The Painter as Historian, 15 November - 31 December 1962, no. 22.

LITERATURE: G. Ruprich-Robert, "Rigault d'Oureille, Sénéchal de Gascogne et de l'Agenais, et son château de Villeneuve-Lembron," in L'Auvergne Littéraire, Artistique et Historique, 2ème cahier, 1935;
F. Mercier, Le Portrait de Louis XI de Villeneuve-Lembron, Paris, n.d., pp. 3-6, reproduced (frontispiece);
Five Centuries of History Mirrored in Five Centuries of French Art, exhibition catalogue, New York, World's Fair
(Pavillon de la France), 1939, cat. no. 36, reproduced plate VIII (as Jean Fouquet);
G. Wildenstein, "Cinq siècles d'art français," in La Renaissance, XX II, May 1939, pp.14 and 18, reproduced (as Jean Fouquet);
A. Frankfurter, "The French Tradition: Festival Show," in Art News, vol. XXXVII, 10 June 1939, p. 14;
M. Vaughan, "Eight Exhibition: Wildenstein & Company," in Parnassus, XI, no. 6, October 1939, p. 21, reproduced pp.
16 and 20(as Jean Fouquet);
R. Frost, "Fashion in Headdress," in Art News, XLII, 15-31 May, 1943, p. 9, reproduced (as Jean Fouquet, and dated to 1472);
Town and Country, July 1947, reproduced (colour);
O.K Bach, "Art of the Middle Ages," in Denver Art Museum Quarterly, Winter 1950, p. 10, reproduced;
The Painter as Historian, exhibition catalogue, New York, Wildenstein, 15 November - 31 December 1962, cat. no. 22,
reproduced p. 49;
"Amerika, Austellungen Ausserhalb New York City," in Pantheon, XXI, no. 1, January - February 1963, p. 53 (as French School, 15th Century);
L.B. Smith, The Horizon Book of the Elizabethan World, New York 1967, reproduced in colour on p. 26 (as attributed
to Fouquet);
P.M. Kendall, Warwick the Kingmaker, New York 1968, reproduced in the plate between pp. 206 and 207;
E. Le Roy Ladurie, L'État Royal de Louis XI à Henri IV, 1460-1610, Paris 1987, a detail reproduced in colour on the dust jacket;
C. Gauvard, ed., Il était une fois la France: vingt siècles d'histoire, Paris, Brussels, Montreal and Zurich 1987, pp. 114-115, a detail reproduced in colour on p. 114;
C. Weightman, Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgandy, 1446-1503, Gloucester and New York 1989, reproduced p.
32.

CATALOGUE NOTE
This appears to be the only surviving lifetime portrait painted in oil of France's great late fifteenth century monarch, Louis XI. Due to a dearth of surviving portraits of the king this picture has come to define the image of Louis XI for all modern commentators. Though numerous copies and versions are known, none of them are datable to King Louis's lifetime. Technical analysis of this panel, however, has proved incontrovertibly that it was painted during the king's lifetime and it thus seems very likely that it is the prime version from which all the other known copies derive.

The black background is a later addition. Underneath is a thick layer of indigo, an unusual pigment though not without precedent in France at this time. The portrait would thus originally have been set before a blue background which is indeed more in line with expectations of a French renaissance portrait. All other versions of the portrait known in colour reproduction include a black background and it may thus be surmised that the earliest of these were copied from the present work subsequent to its background being over-painted in black. It is not known exactly when this over-painting was carried out, though it is likely to have been soon after the portrait originated.

The portrait is painted on a gesso ground, as was common in France at this date, and it was originally contained within an engaged frame, as intimated by the raised edge of the gesso on all four margins (fig. 1).1 The cockleshell collar is here delicately painted in gold; in no other version is the use of gold recorded. Furthermore, the cockleshells here are tied together with four bead-ended woven tassels, also brushed with gold, and they sit on top of a delicate gold mesh, whereas in all the other versions each shell is connected to the next by a simple chain of four beads in a row, with no mesh. The hat corresponds to those featuring in other portraits from the time, such as Fouquet's Portrait of a man of circa 1475 in the Hermitage.2

The portrait is painted on a single plank of French oak. Dendrochronological analysis of the panel, carried out by Prof. Dr. Peter Klein of Hamburg University, suggests an earliest plausible usage date of 1455, though more likely is a usage date a decade or so later. Given that Louis is here said to be wearing the Order of Saint-Michel, the chivalric order he founded on 1st August 1469, the portrait most likely dates from that date or soon after, and would thus depict the king at the age of forty six or forty-seven.

Louis founded the Order of Saint-Michel in response to the founding of the Order of the Golden Fleece by his great rival Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy. The Order of Saint-Michel, displaying the archangel Michael on a rock (Mont St. Michel) defeating Satan, and suspended from a gold chain made up of cockleshells, the symbol of the pilgrim, was the highest Order in France until superseded by the Order of the Sant-Esprit. Some doubt has however been cast as to whether the order here is indeed that of Saint-Michel. In all the copies the medallion has been turned more frontal, so that the image of St. Michael slaying Satan is legible. Here the medallion is seen in profile, and its face thus obscured. It should be noted however, that the use of the cockleshell collar, the symbol of the pilgrim, is not associated with any other chivalric Order from this date.

The portrait, like some of the later copies, has been previously attributed to Jean Fouquet. Fouquet was in the personal employment of the king as peintre du roi for a period of five years in the 1470s, during which time he headed a large workshop which produced paintings, manuscripts and banners for the king. While no document recording such a portrait of Louis XI by Fouquet or one of his assistants survives, it seems likely that during his time at the court, Fouquet or his workshop would indeed have painted a portrait of the king. However, whoever the artist is, and whether associated to Fouquet or not, he has depicted the king in profile as was the taste at the time, especially in the courts of the Italian peninsula, and such a pose made very obvious reference to the portraits of great leaders from antiquity, with whom Louis no doubt wished to be associated.

The repetitions and versions of this portrait have been traced to the following collections: formerly Château de Fontainebleau, known from an engraving by Jean Morin; the seventeenth century collection of Roger de Gaignières, lost, but known through a watercolour copy now in the Bibliothèque National de France; formerly collection of Baron Vitta, Paris (his sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 27 June 1924, lot 33) and in the collection of Col. M Friedsam, New York, 1927 (see Witt Library Mount; based on its close likeness with the watercolour copy of the lost de Gaignières version, this is likely to be synonymous with it); eighteenth century copy in reverse in the Château de Plessis-lez-Tours, France; Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna; Musée de l'Ariana, Geneva; Musée d'Art et d'Histoire, Geneva; Historisches Museum, Berne (see T.-H. Borchert, Splendour of The Burgundian Court. Charles the Bold, exhibition catalogue, Berne/Bruges/Vienna 2008, cat. no. 7); Church of Béhuard, Maine-et-Loire, France; the Brooklyn Museum, New York (see C. Maumené and L. d'Harcourt, Iconographie des Rois de France, vol. I, Paris 1928, pp. 77-78, and F. Mercier, see literature, pp. 5-6).

THE SITTER
The son of Charles VII of France and Mary of Anjou, Louis XI was born on 3rd July 1423 and died almost exactly sixty years later, on 30 August 1483. He acceded to the throne in 1461 and enjoyed a twenty-two year reign as King of France. As Dauphin he was almost permanently in revolt against his father and, as king, against the grand nobles. His measures to curb the power of the nobles led to Charles the Bold's founding the League of the Public Good with Francois II, Duc de Bretagne, the Ducs de Bourbon, Louis's brother Charles and others. Throughout his reign Louis fought them and was always supported by the bourgeoisie and the lower classes. He subdued Normandy in 1468 with the Peace of Ancenis, and he signed truces with Francois II and Charles the Bold in 1472, though he later benefited from Charles' death by taking Burgundy, Picardy, Boulogne, Artois, and Franche-Comté from Charles' daughter, Mary of Burgundy. He later acquired Anjou, Maine, Bar and Provence. He was succeeded by the son he had by Charlotte of Savoy, Charles VIII. His reputation for scheming and plotting earned him the nicknames le rusé ('the cunning') and l'aragne universelle ('the universal spider').

PROVENANCE: Based on the inscription on the reverse of the backing panel (see fig. 2), which is likely to date from the late nineteenth century, we can surmise that this portrait, painted originally for the king himself, was given by him to Rigaud d'Aureille, Baron de Villeneuve (1455-1517), his chamberlain and ambassador, who would also serve under Charles VIII, Louis XII and Francis I, and upon whom Louis XI bestowed, appropriately, the Order of Saint-Michel. He built the great Château de Villeneuve-Lembron (1488-1515) to the south-east of Clermont-Ferrand. It remained at the Château into the nineteenth century.

The inscription reads: portrait original de Louis onze/ donné par le roi à rigauld/ d'aurel seigneur et Baron/ de Villeneuve du che[r] et/ de Villefranche, qui servit/ ce prince et ses trois successeurs,/ comme chambellan ou maître/ d'hotel, ambassadeur et/ homme de guerre distingué./ Ce portrait fut placé dans le [the latter two words crossed out] par rigauld d'aurel/ dans le château qu'il fit construire/ à Villeneuve-lembron lieu de sa naissance et y/ a toujours été conservé jusqu'a/ ce jour./ Il appartient à M. de féligonde/ conseiller à riom, propriétaire/ du susdit château de Villeneuve.
1. We are grateful to Art Access and Research for their help with the technical analysis of this portrait.
2. See F. Avril et al., Jean Fouquet. Peintre et enlumineur du XVe siècle, Paris 2003, pp. 142-6, cat. no. 12, reproduced.

Sotheby's. Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale. London | 04 Jul 2012 www.sothebys.com

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