Part 21

Madame de Besons is wearing a pale pink silk dress with a deep flounce with sleeves of the favorite Mechlin lace and a large cape with collar. Her hair is waved in fine shells and adorned with the little spray of flowers that Madame de Pompadour had made the fashion at this moment. A necklace consisting of three rows of perfectly matched pearls proclaim Madame de Besons a lady of wealth. The chair in which Madame de Besons is sitting is a handsome example of Louis XV furniture, gold frame upholstered in light green brocade. The background is dark grey. The painting (37 × 29¼ inches) is an unusual and a most artistic work of Greuze.

LA MARQUISE DE VILLEMONBLE.

_François Hubert Drouais (1727–1775)._

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache._

One is often asked to define the _style Louis XV_. Could there possibly be a better definition than is expressed in this exquisite portrait of an exquisite lady,--La Marquise de Villemonble? Is not the very essence, the spirit, the perfume of the Eighteenth Century seen in the face, the dress, the pose, the manner, the charm, and the “grand style” of the Marquise?

[Illustration:

_Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs_

LA MARQUISE DE BESONS TUNING A GUITAR

--_Jean Baptiste Greuze_]

It is very evident that Drouais took deep delight in painting this aristocratic lady and her beautiful costume as well. We can see with what pleasure the painter’s brush swept into being the lustre and the folds of the pale lemon satin dress; traced the delicate pattern of the Mechlin lace that forms the ruffles of the bell-sleeves and the garniture of the neck; tied the bows of rich pink satin adorning the corsage and holding the lace at the sleeves; touched up the cluster of shaded grey feathers and rounded the pearls in the _coiffure_; placed the little string of black velvet around the neck; and lingered upon the sheet of music which the Marquise is holding so gracefully. The words below the notes show that the lady is a singer. Yet all these carefully painted details do not detract from the beauty of the lady herself. Her features are high-bred, sweet, and perfect, and her expression shows great loveliness of nature. Altogether the Marquise de Villemonble is a beautiful and charming person and Drouais, we may be sure, has not flattered her in this beautiful and charming portrait. The canvas (46 × 35 inches) is signed and dated 1761 and it is interesting to relate that it came directly from the Villemonble family to its present owner, Mr. Jules S. Bache.

François Hubert Drouais was born in Paris in 1727 and studied under his father, Hubert Drouais (1699–1767), a portrait-painter who was also famous for his miniatures. Young François grew up with the great painters of the day, who were friends of his father--Nattier, de Troy, Oudry, and others--and he became a pupil of Carle Van Loo and Boucher. With such masters is it any wonder that Drouais should have developed _style_?

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

LA MARQUISE DE VILLEMONBLE

--_François Hubert Drouais_]

Drouais began to exhibit at the Salon of 1755 and appeared every year subsequently until his death in 1775. His talents brought him recognition and he became painter to the King, to Monsieur and Madame, and practically all the nobility and aristocracy of France sat to him. Naturally, the world of fashion followed suit. Drouais painted Madame de Pompadour and owed much to her patronage. He also painted Madame du Barry many times and his vogue continued through the reign of Louis XVI. One of his most successful portraits--Marie Antoinette as Hebe--now hangs at Chantilly and gives a most distinguished presentation of the young Queen, a proud figure in yellow draperies, rose-colored waist ribbons, and lilac scarf, holding a golden cup in one hand and a silver ewer in the other.

Drouais holds his own with Watteau, Pater, Lancret, Fragonard, Greuze, Chardin, and de la Tour, for he, too, like these artists of radiant style, knew how to present with skillful and polished technique, flowing lines, fluent grace, piquant expression, characteristic gesture, and fashionable dress. Moreover, his quick observation and light touch produce something akin to sparkling comedy; and yet in all the play of his brush and his airy manner Drouais never failed to create an atmosphere of elegance and distinction.

MADEMOISELLE HELVETIUS.

_François Hubert Drouais (1727–1775)._

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff._

That Drouais was a master who could succeed with any subject for portraiture will be appreciated by comparing this sympathetic presentation of a pretty little girl with the preceding portrait of La Marquise de Villemonble, who appears in the full beauty of maturity. Even Greuze, with all his skill in representing youthful charm, never produced a lovelier work than this Mademoiselle Helvetius. Here the little girl looks at us smiling beneath her big “shepherdess” hat, holding in her dress clusters of purple and jade colored grapes. Drouais evidently appreciated the decorative beauty of the grape and its leaves, for he has brought out their character and lusciousness with a loving surety of touch that shows him to be on a par with any painter who has specialized in fruit.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff_

MADEMOISELLE HELVETIUS

--_François Hubert Drouais_]

The delightful painting, which is signed, came to its present owner from the J. P. Morgan Collection.

L’INVOCATION À L’AMOUR.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)._

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff._

The de Goncourts remarked in their _L’Art du Dix-huitième Siècle_ that the two great--and the only great--poets in France in the Eighteenth Century were Watteau and Fragonard; and they very fancifully and very truly said that the saucy little Loves hovering about in the sky of _L’Embarquement pour L’Île de Cythère_ were “getting ready to fly to Fragonard and to put on his palette the hues of their butterfly wings.”

Of that tragic painting, _Corésus and Callirhoé_ (in the Louvre) the de Goncourts, noting the extraordinary movement and whirl in the work, said “a great mute cry seems to rise in the composition,” and then added: “This cry of a picture, so new for the Eighteenth Century, is Passion.”

Fragonard had the genius for expressing movement and emotion to such a degree that sometimes “a cry” seems to issue from his canvas. This rush of movement and this torrent of emotion, this outburst like leaping flames and whirling clouds, is expressed in full power in the picture represented here, which bears some likeness to the _Fountain of Love_ in the Wallace Gallery, London.

_L’Invocation à l’Amour_ (20½ × 24¾ inches) was painted between 1780 and 1785. It came into public notice at the La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt Sale in Paris in 1827 and has since belonged to the Collections of M. le duc de Polignac; to Madame la duchesse de Polignac née Crillon; to Mr. L. Neumann, London; and to M. Jean Bertoloni, Paris. _L’Invocation à l’Amour_ was shown at the Fragonard Exposition, Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris in 1921, and came thereafter into possession of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Mortimer L. Schiff_

L’INVOCATION À L’AMOUR

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

Jean Honoré Fragonard was born at Grasse in 1732 and died in Paris in 1806. He studied under Chardin and Boucher, won the _grand prix_ de Rome at the age of twenty, studied in Rome, visited Naples and Sicily with Hubert Robert, and, returning to Paris, leaped into fame with his _Corésus and Callirhoé_ in 1765. Fragonard painted every subject--love-scenes, portraits, _genre_, and landscape--equally well and always with the lightest touch, the most delicate colors, and infinite charm.

“His method,” says Louis Hautecœur, “is even more dexterous than that of Boucher, because he is better instructed; this rapidity of brush-work is not negligent, because it is guided by previous study; this freedom of handling is not hap-hazard: it springs from the joy of creating; that is what makes Fragonard a great painter. Thus a natural sensibility, which gave to his works movement, picturesque character, and color seems to be the master faculty of Fragonard; and out of this movement, this feeling for the picturesque, and this color arises a fantasy composed of intelligence and imagination. The _Fête of St. Cloud_ becomes a fairy scene; the _Garden of Fontainebleau_ the setting of a dream; and the _Fountain of Love_ flows in a world of mystery. Fragonard was not only a _painter_ unique in style, but he was a _poet_ of that century of which he saw the close--a _poet_ whose sensibility was shown less in the nature of his works than in the manner in which he treated them: in his golden rays of light; in the shadowy recesses of the parks; in the cloud forms of a tempest; in the youthful charm of children; and in the grace of women--and herein lies his originality.”

LE BILLET-DOUX.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)._

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache._

In studying this graceful composition with its subtle harmonies of color and its amazing play of iridescent reflections and ever changing lights it is easy to see that Fragonard spent some time in the studio of Chardin, having the benefit of instruction from that great master. Charm is the keynote of the picture. The colors are indescribable as they are constantly changing; but the general tonality is golden-brown in all the shades of leaves at autumn with sunlight playing upon them and combined with the softest blue of the sky; and these browns and blues are so merged and mingled that they shimmer and vary like “changeable velvet.” The effect is, therefore, both rich and, at the same time, tender, soft, and brilliant. A few high lights of pink are discreetly used. The charming, piquant, and lovely lady, is said to be the daughter of Boucher and was married to another painter, Baudouin, and, after his death, to M. de Cuviller. The lady is half rising from her writing-table and is holding in her left hand a bouquet of pink roses in a conical paper-holder into which she is placing a letter, addressed to “Monsieur M. C.” Her head is turned a little to the front and her expression seems to indicate that she does not wish to be detected in her pretty romance. She is a person of elegance and fashion and her dress is altogether _comme il faut_, in what we please to call to-day a “Watteau costume,” with the panniers and the “Watteau plait” at the back. The material is a very pale blue velvet with brownish lights. Her hair is dressed fashionably and surmounted by a modish little “butterfly cap” brightened with pink ribbons, which, with the pink roses, are the only notes of bright color in the picture. Lying on the chair and looking directly out of the picture is a darling little poodle dog. In the “_Billet-Doux_,” Louis Hautecœur says, “we can best appreciate the skill of the master who delighted in making a golden light play across a yellow curtain upon a blue robe.”

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Jules S. Bache_

LE BILLET-DOUX

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

This painting (33¾ × 26⅜ inches) passed through the Collections of the Baron Feuillet de Conches; Madame Jagerschmidt; M. Ernest Cronier; and M. Joseph Bardac,--all of Paris. The _Billet-Doux_ was shown at the Alsace-Lorraine Exhibitions of 1874 and 1927, and is lauded in all the standard works on Fragonard.

LA MARQUISE DE LA FARE.

_Jean Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806)._

_Collection of Mrs. James B. Haggin._

Could anything be lighter, lovelier, and more graceful in the way of painting than this distinguished representation of the distinguished Marquise de la Fare? For elegant simplicity as well as technique this portrait is without a peer. Only Fragonard could have painted it. There is something here that reminds us of the flicker and flutter and quick movement and vitality of the flame,--that symbol of the soul and of eternal life. Unconsciously, perhaps, by these leaping, flashing lines the painter symbolized his own genius and the spirit of the exquisite lady he was privileged to portray. With his butterfly touch and his liquid, rapid brush, Fragonard caught this charming personality. Yet, behind this quick impressionistic work--as light in key and ethereal in harmony as Claude Monet or Matisse--what knowledge, what skill! Here is all the majesty of Greek sculpture at its climax of perfection, but Greek sculpture rendered dynamic and human. And what a pose! What exquisite arms and hands! What style! What _chic_! The dress is cream and the drapery, old rose, harmonizing with the ash-blonde hair and blue eyes.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mrs. James B. Haggin_

LA MARQUISE DE LA FARE

--_Jean Honoré Fragonard_]

The picture (31¾ × 25 inches) came directly from the de la Fare family to its present owner.

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE PARK.

_Hubert Robert (1733–1808)._

_Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs._

When Hubert Robert exhibited for the first time in August, 1765, he won instant recognition. The French public at a period when taste was supreme, praised the originality of Hubert Robert’s design and his exquisite delicacy of coloring and decided, moreover, that although his study of the antique had been thorough and sympathetic, the new artist was, above all, a Parisian of Parisians.

Hubert Robert plays on two themes: one, the ruins of antiquity--especially Rome--and the other, garden-scenes. In fact, his success with ruins as subject-matter gave him the _sobriquet_ of “_Robert des Ruines_.” Hubert Robert was born in Paris in 1733 and after some preliminary art education went to Rome in 1754, where he studied for eleven years, devoting himself almost exclusively to antiquities. On his return to Paris he was made a member of the Academy and his pictures brought him instant fame. He lived in the studios in the Louvre until the outbreak of the Revolution, when he was imprisoned for ten months; but during this time he painted and produced a _Taking of the Prisoners by Torchlight in Open Carts from St. Pélagie to St. Lazare_. He was lucky in his release, which occurred through the mistake of the jailer, who sent another prisoner of the same name to the guillotine. Hubert Robert died in Paris on April 15, 1808. Equal to his reputation as a painter was his reputation as a landscape-gardener. He was the successor of Le Nôtre, whose style had given place to the Anglo-Chinese gardens. Hubert Robert, as architect of the King’s Gardens, designed the _Baths of Apollo_ in the Park of Versailles in 1784, and he laid out the very famous grounds of Mézéville near Étampes-in-Beauce, in which work Joseph Vernet was associated.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Dr. and Mrs. Henry Barton Jacobs_

THE FOUNTAIN IN THE PARK

--_Hubert Robert_]

The distinguished picture shown here (57½ × 39 inches) from the Collection of M. S. Bardac, Paris, presents the artist also as a garden-lover. All the poetry produced by a tossing stream of spray among green trees is expressed here.

“Hubert Robert,” writes Henri Frantz, “is one of those who, brought back into fashion by the de Goncourts and their generation, enjoy a reputation increasing every day; and thus drawings in red chalk or in water-colors which one might easily have picked up years ago in the boxes of the petty dealers of Paris or of Rome are found to-day in museums and in the most celebrated Collections and fetch the highest prices in European sales. Moreover, Hubert Robert did not go out of fashion till the commencement of the Nineteenth Century and no artist was _fêted_ and admired by his contemporaries more than he.”

Hubert Robert has again become the fashion.

MADAME LABILLE-GUIARD AND TWO PUPILS.

_Madame Labille-Guiard (1749–1803)._

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind._

Here we have a picture painted in the grand style, a beautiful composition, a marvellous expression of technique, and a portrait-group including a self-portrait of the artist.

Madame Labille-Guiard, a handsome women of dashing style, is seated before her easel busy at work, wearing a very handsome costume and not one exactly appropriate to working in a studio. However, the painter being as delightfully feminine in her tastes as she was masculine in her artistic performance, has the vanity of her sex to wish to be perpetuated in rich and fashionable attire,--_comme il faut_ in every respect.

The two young ladies, who are observing the work of Madame Labille-Guiard are her favorite pupils, Mesdemoiselles Capet and Rosemond.

Madame Labille-Guiard’s dress is blue-grey satin with lace at neck and sleeves and hat of golden straw with blue-grey ostrich feathers matching the dress. The chair in which the artist is seated is upholstered in green velvet. The pupil in front wears a dark brown dress. Most beautifully is painted the diaphanous ruffle at her elbow.

[Illustration:

_Collection of Mr. Edward J. Berwind_

MADAME LABILLE-GUIARD AND TWO PUPILS

--_Madame Labille-Guiard_]

The picture of large dimensions (82½ × 60 inches) is signed and dated 1785 and was exhibited at the Salon in that year. From the Collection of Madame Griois, a descendant of the artist, the painting came to its present owner, Mr. Edward J. Berwind.

Adélaïde Labille-des-Vertus was born in Paris, April 11, 1749. She studied art under François Élie Vincent, a clever miniature-painter and afterward under Latour. She married twice: first, the sculptor Guiard, and, after his death, François André Vincent, the son of her former teacher, himself a capable painter and etcher. Madame Labille-Guiard became an Académicien in 1783 at the same time with Madame Vigée Lebrun. She painted a great number of large oil-portraits and miniatures, and in 1787 and 1789 attracted attention by her portraits of the King’s daughters, Madame Adélaïde and Madame Victoire. She also painted a large picture for Monsieur (afterwards Louis XVIII), called the _Initiation of a Knight of Malta_, which was finished at the outbreak of the Revolution; but which was destroyed. Madame Labille-Guiard died in Paris on Floréal 4, _An XI. de la République_, or April 8, 1803.

ENGLISH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY

_ENGLISH, EIGHTEENTH CENTURY_

When Théophile Gautier saw Gainsborough’s portrait of _Mr. and Mrs. Hallet_, now known as _The Morning Walk_, he said that he felt “a strange retrospective sensation, so intense is the illusion it produces of the spirit of the Eighteenth Century. We really fancy we see the young couple,” he adds, “walking arm-in-arm along a garden avenue.”

It is this “strange retrospective sensation” that we feel when we look upon the canvases of Gainsborough, Reynolds, and Romney.

The Eighteenth Century was one of those periods in the world’s history when Society reached its peak, when Society was the goal of all things and of every one, and when it was dominated by taste, elegance, gaiety, lightness, brightness, wit, beauty, and charm. There was charm in everything--in art, in music, in literature, in conversation, and in dress. There was a _chic_ and dainty grace with which the Eighteenth Century belle wore her large hat, tied her sash, and pointed the toe of her high-heeled satin slipper on the polished floor of the ball-room, or the greensward of the garden or lawn; and there was a corresponding _chic_ and dashing elegance with which the Eighteenth Century _beau_ made his bow, tapped his snuff-box, or handed the “ladies of St. James’s” in and out of their sedan-chairs.

This sparkling, iridescent age, with its taste, grace, and wit can never come again--for our world has travelled far along another path--but if the Eighteenth Century cannot return to us, we can return to it by means of its literature, its music, and its art.

At such a period, when the social world was of exceptional brilliance, it is only natural that the art of portraiture should have flourished with unparalleled lustre.

Three great geniuses arose in England to bring this special branch of painting up to a pitch that had never been reached there before.

It is true that Holbein’s portraits are magnificent, stately, and true to life, and that they present wonderful portrayals of character; but Holbein was painting in a world of drastic change, of adventure, of political agitation, when nearly everyone whom he painted had the fear of the axe descending upon his neck. It is true that Van Dyck painted people of elegance and distinguished manner--the portrait of Robert Rich, Earl of Warwick on page 189 would alone prove this--and gives us a glimpse into a charming world.

But Reynolds, Gainsborough, and Romney were the first to paint Society--that brilliant, witty, provocative, frivolous, graceful, charming, _chic_, and altogether delightful Society of the Eighteenth Century.

The Eighteenth Century! How we delight in it!

We are not too far away to feel at home in it; and, moreover, much of our beautiful Georgian architecture survives in this country with Chippendale, Sheraton, and Heppelwhite furniture and Spode, Wedgwood, Chelsea, Lowestoft and various china, with other relics besides, to show us that our Colonial forefathers lived in style and elegance. The latest fashions in household furnishings and dress travelled here from London even quicker than they travelled to the English provinces.

To lift the curtain upon the Eighteenth Century is like lifting the cover from a Chinese jar of _pot-pourri_; and just as that subtle yet pungent scent of rose-leaves, lavender, sweet spices, and musk float from it, so visions appear before another sense. Our inherited memories bring before us pictures of brocade gowns or “hoops,” flowered silk overdresses, high-heeled satin slippers with glittering buckles, ruffles of Mechlin lace, “chicken-skin” fans gay with Watteau or Lancret or Pater pictures, rustling silks, shimmering satins, nodding feathers, cinnamon coats, Ramilies tie-wigs, lace-solitaires, wrist-ruffles, cocked-hats, swords, and snuff-boxes.

We seem to stand in lovely gardens, bright with roses and hollyhocks, larkspur, foxglove, amaranth, love-in-a-mist, bleeding-hearts, and gilliflowers, noting the moving shadow on the sundial and watching the stately peacocks behind the well-clipped hedges of box and holly; or we follow the fashionable world to Ranelagh or Vauxhall, where we look with fascinated gaze on the beautiful women in hoops of brocade or lutestring silk, much painted, powdered and patched, glancing archly beneath their coquettish “gipsy hats” at their gallant escorts, who know so well how to lead them through the steps of a minuet or a gavotte to the rococo tunes of Rameau, Dr. Arne, or Couperin with their quirls and pretty runs and trills and long pauses for stately bows.

That world is so fascinating to us that we fancy we, too, could wear without embarrassment the elaborate costume and that we, too, would feel much at home with Horace Walpole and his friends at _Strawberry Hill_. We, too, might be able to prepare minced chicken in a chafing-dish, just as satisfactorily as the Miss Berrys; and we like to fancy that we could take part in their airy conversation of charm, banter, and light mockery. At any rate, if we should not be able to succeed in entertaining Horace Walpole, we are very certain that Sir Horace could entertain us!

All the Society people of London of this time seem very friendly to us and we are strangely “at home” with the portraits of Gainsborough, Sir Joshua, and Romney.

When we look upon _Diana, Lady Crosbie_, _Lady Betty Delmé_, _Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire_, _Maria Walpole, Duchess of Gloucester_, _Lady Derby_, and _The Hon. Mrs. Davenport_ do we not feel that we have known and talked to these people in the flesh? Their eyes meet ours and our thoughts meet theirs,--and we are not strangers to one another.

And when we look upon Gainsborough’s _Mall_ does it not bring back memories of the time when we, ourselves, walked there with all the gay throng of a bright morning?

Lord Gower said very aptly:

“Gainsborough created a new school by making a lady’s petticoat a thing of beauty. He could even throw a halo upon a ribbon or a scarf.”