Journal of the History of Collections Advance Access first published online on November 16, 2006
This version published online on January 11, 2007
Journal of the History of Collections, doi:10.1093/jhc/fhl034
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© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.
The cabinet of François-Emmanuel Bonne de Créquy, Duc de Lesdiguières
A taste most refined
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Abstract |
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Presented here is one of the most interesting collections of paintings gathered in late-seventeenth-century Paris: the thirty-eight pictures of François-Emmanuel Bonne de Créquy (1645–81). Until the present, this cabinet de peintures has been known only through the seven paintings mentioned in 1681–2, by Michel Passart, when, following the death of the Duc de Lesdiguières in July 1681, his whole cabinet was purchased by the art dealer Antoine Hérault. The fact that the Lesdiguières family was related to the more famous Créquys, already known as great art collectors, gives us an insight into the variety of responses to matters of art among the aristocracy in seventeenth-century France. Extracts from Passart's letters referring to paintings from the Lesdiguières collection are also included, since they shed light on sharp practices within the burgeoning trade in works of art during the late-seventeenth century.
1 G. Macon, Les arts dans la Maison de Condé (Paris, 1903), pp. 8–12, and, more recently, A. Schnapper, Curieux du Grand Siècle. Collections et collectionneurs dans la France du xvii siècle. ii – 
uvres d’art (Paris, 1994), pp. 106–7.
2 All the parts referring to the Lesdiguières paintings are transcribed at the end of this article.
3 Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, notary lxxxix, 51, 14 July 1681.
4 See, most notably, J.-C. Boyer and I. Volf, ‘Rome à Paris. Les tableaux du duc de Créquy (1638)’, Revue de l’Art (1988), pp. 22–41, and Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 383–5.
5 Lieutenant-Général du Dauphiné, Maréchal de France, he was promoted to the ‘Duc et pair’ dignity, which was the highest rank below royalty, in 1611. On the military side, he was made Connétable in 1622, once he converted to Catholicism. See J.-P. Labatut, Les ducs et pairs de France au xviie siècle: étude sociale (Paris, 1972), pp. 171, 305–6.
6 The seigneurie of Vizille was bought by Lesdiguières in June 1593. The former building was then pulled down and rebuilt, in various phases, over the following years, with the help of the architect Girard Desargues. In the early-eighteenth century, when the Lesdiguières family line died out, the castle, along with the Hôtel in Grenoble, went to the Villeroy family. In the nineteenth century, while the castle of Vizille was turned into a linen factory of indiennes, two fires, in 1825 and in 1865, destroyed most of the internal decorations. Presently, it houses the Museum of the French Revolution.
7 See L. Videl, Histoire de la vie du connestable de Lesdiguières, contenant toutes ses actions depuis sa naissance, jusques à sa mort ... (Paris, 1638). A catalogue of his manuscripts was collected by Peiresc (Carpentras, Bibliothèque Inguimbertine, Papiers Peiresc, MS 2, fol. 276). Moreover, the inventory of the 3rd Duke, in 1681, quotes a considerable number of books written in Latin, or with classical and historical subjects, which he certainly inherited from his father or his grandfather.
8 As the Connétable had no male heirs, by a codicil of 26 September 1626, his titles of ‘duc et pair’ passed to his son-in-law Charles, Maréchal de Créquy, so that this dignity would then be conveyed to Créquy's children. Hence, it is the Maréchal's eldest son who then became the 2nd Duc de Lesdiguières, while his cadet inherited of the Duc de Créquy title, eventually promoted to the ‘duc et pair’ dignity in 1652. See Labatut, op. cit. (note 5), p. 76.
9 A quick assessment of the 2nd Duke's Parisian belongings (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, notary lvii, 64, 27 July 1677) is later quoted in the ‘titres & papiers’ section of his son's inventory. While very short, it lists a larger number of tapestry hangings than those mentioned four years later.
10 J.-J. A. Pilot de Thorey, Sur les anciennes galeries de tableaux des ducs de Lesdiguières à Grenoble et à Vizille (Grenoble, 1877).
11 In fact, apart from the wall-paintings and those few adorning the chapel, the 103 pictures listed in Vizille were for the most portraits and battle scenes.
12 Grenoble, Archives Départementales de l’Isère, 10 B 1160, quoted by B. Blanc and V. Chomel, Archives du château de Vizille et de la famille Perier (Grenoble, 1985). We are grateful to M. Soulingeas, director of the Archives Départementales, who provided a copy of its paintings section (fols. 29–34v of this document).
13 The most evident mistake is certainly the ‘paisage, toille de teste, d’Agostino Taxe [A. Tassi]’ misread by Thorey as a landscape by the rather uncommon artist Agostino Carracci.
14 Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, cxvii, 505, 10 May 1638. Thorougly analyzed and partly published by Boyer and Volf, op. cit. (note 4), it was first noticed by Labatut, op. cit. (note 5).
15 Following Richard Symonds testimony, recently quoted by Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 158–9, 384. One should remember that the Giustinianis actually paid 300 scudi for this painting.
16 See Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 384–5.
17 Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, cxiii, 135, 21 March 1687. Quoted, but without references, by E. Magne in 1939, this inventory was rediscovered and studied, first by Labatut, op. cit. (note 5), p. 292; and, more recently, by Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), p. 384.
18 In 1681, there was a gallerie des cartes, and a gallerie des rozes, which, like the appartement doré, might refer to a painted décor.
19 This residence, which was already admired by Zamet's contemporaries, was bought by the 1st Duke in April 1623 (the sale contract, currently missing, is quoted under number ‘10’ in the inventory of 1681). Passed on afterwards to the Villeroys along with all Lesdiguières estates and properties, it was sold again in 1735. A few years later, the former Hôtel Lesdiguières was separated from its gardens which were then built over. Progressively reduced from its former grandeur during the nineteenth century and finally destroyed in 1878, it would have covered both sides of today's Boulevard Henri-IV between the Rue de la Cerisaie and the Rue de ... Lesdiguières.
20 In 1698, Martin Lister praised the quality and the commodiousness of its lodging quarters, most notably in the apartments of the Duchess (‘the only house in Paris I saw kept in all the parts of it, with the most exact cleanliness and neatness, [especially] the Apartment of the Duchess, which was all of her own contrivance, and had an air of state and agreeableness beyond anything I had seen’). Later, the following editions of Germain Brice's Description de Paris echoed Lister's admiration: ‘tout y ressent la grandeur et la délicatesse et [dans] les appartements, la richesse des meubles répond à tout le reste ....’ See M. Lister, A Journey to Paris in the year 1698 (London, 1699), p. 189, and G. Brice, Description nouvelle de ce qu’il y a de plus remarquable dans la ville de Paris, from the 1st edition (Paris, 1684) onwards. (For a critical edition of Brice, see P. Codet, Paris and Geneva, 1971.)
21 Among the furniture listed in 1681, only the following can be singled out amongst the items in the Duke's cabinet: two gesso tables (‘2 tables de masticque à fleurs posées sur leurs pieds de bois doré avec festons’) valued at 80 livres, one gilt table with a marble top and two guéridons of the same material (‘une autre table de marbre posée sur son pied aussy de bois doré, et deux guéridons de pareil bois aussy doré’) (160 livres), and a Chinese box on a wooden stand which is also gilded (‘une cassette de bois de la Chine, garnye de coings de cuivre doré, posée sur son pied de bois sculpté et doré’ (90 livres). This inventory also quotes a crystal chandelier, then valued at 300 livres, in the bedroom of the Duchess. This is the more interesting as Lister, sixteen years later, would admire in this very same room, ‘the finest crystal candlestick in France, all the pieces were all bought single by her and the contrivance and setting them together was her own, it cost 12 000 crowns [36,000 livres]’.
22 Most of these tapestries, stored in the attic garde-meuble, would be used as mere wall linings, except for two, which are among the most highly valued items: ‘Item, une tapisserye des Gob[e]lins représentant Renault & Harmide, en 8 pièce’s (est. 1 200 livres) and ‘une tenture, verdure de Bruxelles à petits personnages, représentant les Métamorphoses’ (est. 900 livres).
23 Precisely thirty-one master paintings, along with four other decorative pieces and three pictures of lesser quality.
24 All known information regarding this donation is given in the 1681 inventory, under no. 5 of the ‘titres & papiers’ section, but none of the legal papers quoted there, up to the final agreement between the two Dukes, on 22 September 1679 (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, lvii, 131) provides any details on what exactly was granted to the Lesdiguières.
25 The Francesco Albani paintings in the Lesdiguières cabinet are most notably quoted by Félibien, in his Entretiens sur la vie et les ouvrages des plus excellents peintres anciens et modernes (Paris, 5 vols., 1666–88), vol. IV, p. 226.
26 Even if the Passart letters reveal that the actual price paid by Hérault for the Veronese (3 000 livres) was a little lower than its valuation in Lesdiguières inventory (4,000 livres). The same is true for the Albani: 3,000 livres instead of 3,500.
27 It should be emphasized that, following Florent Le Comte, the only paintings by Elsheimer which were then in French collections were those in the Cabinet du Roi and ‘chez Monsieur le duc de Lesdiguières’ (see F. Le Comte, Cabinet des singularitez d’architecture, de peinture et de gravure (Paris, 3 vols., 1699–1701), vol. II, p. 318). Meanwhile, a few years earlier, Félibien had already pointed out that the ‘petit paysage’ by Elsheimer, formerly in the collection of M. de La Noüe, was, at the time, in the ‘cabinet de M. le duc de Lesdiguières’. See Félibien, op. cit. (note 25), vol. III, p. 321, and M. Szanto, ‘Du cabinet des frères Israël et Christophe Desneux aux collections de François de La Noüe. Mise au point sur l’historique des dessins "Desneux de la Noüe" ’, Revue du Louvre (October 2000), pp. 50–9, here pp. 55–6.
28 In his inventory of 13 January 1687 (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier central, lxxxix, 87), Sorlay is presented as ‘maître peintre à Paris et de feu Monseigneur le duc de Lesdiguières’ (that is, painter for the late Duc de Lesdiguières). Many thanks to B. Gady who pointed out this reference to me.
29 Apart from a painting of an unnamed saint, then ascribed to Guido Reni, the lesser valuations (60 and 100 livres) apply to the most common subjects (hunting scenes and landscapes), including the garden view by Fouquières.
30 Schnapper (op. cit. (note 1), p. 107) rightfully points out that, with his asking price of 6,600 livres, Hérault was nevertheless foreseeing a profit margin of 125% on the Veronese and of 25% (4,400 livres instead of 3,500) on the Albani. Passart's letters provide us with two other examples of this scheme: a portrait by Van Dyck going up from a valuation of 550 livres to a price request of 1,200 livres and a small landscape by Goffredo Wals, the price of which rises from 60 to 200 livres.
31 He is Jean-Baptiste de La Rose (1612–87) who spent most of his life and career in Toulon, as a painter for the Navy. This very mention apparently supports the fact that he supposedly provided four large canvases for the décor of Vizille along with two cabinet pieces for the [3rd] Duc de Lesdiguières. See M. Porte, ‘Jean-Baptiste de La Rose peintre (1612-1687)’, Archives de l’Art Français (1860), pp. 225–32, here p. 230; and H. Wynthenove (ed.) La peinture en Provence au xviie siècle, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts (Marseille, 1978), pp. 81 and 178.
32 Claude Gellée known as Claude (Le) Lorrain (1600/1604–82). This rather surprising mention appears quite close either to Claude's Liber Veritatis lv 105, ‘faict pour Paris’, which has been in Holkam Hall since the eighteenth century, or to another painting, in a Spanish private collection, which appears to be lv 112. These are two pastoral rather than religious scenes, where a group of young women in a forest are visiting a man dressed up as a shepherd (or a hermit?). See M. Roethlisberger, Claude Lorrain. The Paintings (New York, 1979), pp. 267–8, 276–8; and J. J. Luna (ed.) Claudio de Lorena y el ideal clasico de paisaje en el siglo xvii, exh. cat., Museo del Prado (Madrid, 1984), pp. 154–5.
33 Pietro Paolo Bonzi called Il Gobbo dei Carracci (1576–1636).
34 Jérôme Sorlay (?–1687). He was a pupil of Mignard and, apparently, mostly a copyist although he also painted a Grand May de Notre-Dame, one of the large religious canvases which were presented annually (but for two years) to the cathedral chapter by the Goldsmiths’ Guild, between 1630 and 1708. Sorlay's Domine Quo Vadis (Versailles, Cathédrale Saint-Louis) is the one provided in 1672. As we have seen before, Sorlay was apparently close to the Lesdiguières which may explain why he became one of the two experts commissioned in 1681.
35 It is not possible to identify with certainty this artist, although he was certainly a specialist of flowers, for the well-known Jean-Baptiste Forest and his father Pierre were both landscape painters.
36 This is certainly a mistaken attribution, but because of their obvious differences in style, it is impossible to be certain whether this painting was the one by Ludovico Carracci which is quoted four years later.
37 Paolo Veronese (1528–88). Already quoted in 1677 and bought by Hérault for 3,000 livres, this subject is presently known in several versions, mostly studio paintings or copies. Nevertheless, the Lesdiguières piece could be the version which is presently in Dijon (Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. Ca 13, 118 x 174 cm) for we know that this very painting has been bought by the King from a cousin of Lesdiguières, the Duchesse de Créquy, in 1687. Moreover, we know through Bernini's Journal that it was sold to her by Mignard, who appears as an active player in the dispersal of Lesdiguières cabinet. See M. Guillaume, Catalogue raisonné du Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon. Peintures italiennes (Dijon, 1980), p. 91; Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), p. 384, and M. Stanic (ed.), Paul Fréart de Chantelou, Journal du voyage du Cavalier Bernin en France (Paris, 2001), p. 263.
38 Francesco Albani (1578–1660). This painting was then sold by Hérault to the Prince de Condé for 3,500 livres. Although it is described by Passart and later mentioned in the inventory of Condé's eldest son, dated 1709, there is no way that this actual painting could be singled out from the many versions known of this subject. For instance, Catherine Puglisi has proven that, even in eighteenth-century France, there were no fewer than four different versions of it, quoted at one time or another (see C. Puglisi, Francesco Albani (New Haven, 1999), pp. 149–50). Meanwhile, she supports the identification of the Lesdiguières painting with that from the Nancré and Calvière collections. Although it seems that Nancré's ‘Baptism’ was apparently painted on copper not on canvas (see, for example, S. Loire, Musée du Louvre. École italienne, xviie siècle. i – Bologne (Paris, 1996), passim), this hypothesis remains interesting for Louis-Jacques-Aimé-Théodore de Dreux, Marquis de Nancré (who died in 1719) also owned, like Lesdiguières, a ‘sainte Catherine’ by Ludovico Carracci and a ‘Musique’ by Valentin. All three were bought afterwards by Philippe d’Orléans, Régent de France (see M. de Savignac, ‘Les tableaux de la comtesse de Dreux-Nancré en 1727’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français (1994), pp. 133–9). Hence, the description given by Passart of the Lesdiguières painting appears close to the one sold in the Calvière sale (Paris, 5 May 1779, lot 2), where it was sketched, in the catalogue margin, by Gabriel de Saint-Aubin. See, most recently, J.-C. Boyer (ed.), Le Peintre, le Roi, le Héros. L’Andromède de Pierre Mignard, exh. cat., Musée du Louvre (Paris, 1990), p. 22, fig. 6, and Puglisi, op. cit., p. 151.
39 We know of another Lot painting by Francesco Albani (‘Item, un tableau original de l’Albane, représentant lhot avec ses filles, à bordure dorée, n° 13, prisé 2 500 lts’), which is later quoted in Jean Néret de la Ravoye inventory of August 1701 (Paris, Archives Nationales, Minutier Central, lxxv, 454), but with no information given on its support. As of today, the only Albani painting with both the same subject and support is, apparently, that of the Musée Fabre in Montpellier (inv. no. 836.4.1, 42 x 84 cm). Nothing is known of its history, before its bequest to the Museum by L. Valedeau in 1836. See A. Brejon de Lavergnée and N. Volle, Répertoire des peintures italiennes du xviie siècle dans les collections publiques françaises (Paris, 1986), p. 39, and Puglisi, op. cit. (note 38), p. 134, no. 46.
40 The high estimate and its specific support (wood panel instead of canvas) would help identify this reference with the famous painting from the Crozat collection now in the Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. This masterpiece was part of a group bought directly from the painter's son, by the Duc de Richelieu, in January 1676. Like many other works of his collection, it was quickly sold afterwards by this profligate gambler.
41 Giovanni Benedetto Castiglione (1609–63/1665) or his son, Giovanni Francesco (1641–1710). This painting is apparently that which was mentioned four years earlier, in the Duke's inventory. Both its subject and relatively large size are precisely those of a canvas ascribed to Giovanni Francesco, quite certainly seized from a still unknown collection during the French Revolution, which was sent to the Château de Fontainebleau in 1810 (inv. no. 239, 143 x 193 cm). See, most recently, V. Droguet and D. Veron-Denise (eds.) Peintures pour un château. Cinquante tableaux (xvie–xixe) des collections du château de Fontainebleau, exh. cat., Château de Fontainebleau, (Fonainebleau, 1998–99), p. 82.
42 This mention of a landscape with the story of Actaeon, which was left among the anonymous works in the 1677 inventory, would link this painting to the many versions of this theme based on the prototype presently in Dresden (see, for example, Puglisi, op. cit. (note 38), p. 174, no. 87). But, if this painting was actually a bain de Diane, a rather rare subject in Albani's oeuvre, Lesdiguières might have bought it in the early 1660s following the sale of Louis Hesselin's cabinet, which also housed such a painting. At present, his subject is known only through the painting from the Gower collection, given to the Nîmes Museum in 1869 (inv. no. ip 497, 100 x 133 cm). See the conflicting opinions of Brejon de Lavergnée and Volle, op. cit. (note 38), p. 41 ( ‘réplique ou copie ancienne’ ), and Puglisi's (‘autographe tardif ’ ), op. cit. (note 38), p. 204, no. 134.
43 Paul Bril (1554–1626). This emphasis (‘la’ cascade), as though it were a well-known painting and the only one of its kind, is surprising since this subject, the waterfall, was a favourite for Bril. However, only larger versions are currently known whereas Passart informs us that this canvas, for which Hérault asked 1,100 livres, was a small one.
44 After Arundel's death, many paintings among those sold in Utrecht from 1662 onwards found their way to Paris, so that it would come as no surprise if, as we believe, the Lesdiguières painting cherished by Passart ( ‘fait au premier coup ... fort beau et dont je suis charmé ’ ), for which Hérault asked no less than 1,200 livres, were to be the Van Dyck masterpiece (102.8 x 79.4 cm), bought in 1994 by the J. Paul Getty Museum. As a matter of fact, its known history already related it back to Paris, but somewhat later, as the Getty painting belonged to the Orléans collection in the mid-eighteenth century: see C. White, Anthony Van Dyck: Thomas Howard, the Earl of Arundel (Malibu, 1995, passim). In the meantime, it might have formed part of the Gaignères collection where such a portrait is mentioned in the 1717 sale, fetching quite a fair price (lot 539, 1,010 livres).
45 This is a rather high estimate, for it appears to be the small painting quoted by the 1677 inventory. Hence, among the numerous versions – mostly workshop pieces – and copies of this subject, the exceptionally good quality of the panel from the Lee collection donated to the Courtauld Institute Galleries should be noted (inv. no. 75, 115.2 x 76.2 cm), although it has no known early history. See J. S. Held, The Oil Sketches of Pieter Paul Rubens. A Critical Catalogue (Princeton, 1981), vol. I, no. 355, pp. 489–91, pl. 351.
46 The most precious of the two, protected in its own wooden box, was the famous painting from the Borghese and Ludovisi collections, brought from Rome by the French ambassador Fontenay-Mareuil. It was later (1685) sold to Louis XIV by Pierre Beauchamps (Paris, Louvre, inv. no. 524, 24.5 x 19.2 cm). See Félibien, op. cit. (note 25), vol. II, p. 207 and, most recently, Loire, op. cit. (note 38), pp. 282–6.
47 If its ‘pendant’ (where the Virgin, along with three angels and a white cushion, is dressed in red) was also sold in 1685 by the same Pierre Beauchamps, it has vanished from sight since the early-eighteenth century. This fact is the more troublesome since another version, apparently quite close but with four angels, bought for the King of France in the Carignan sale of 1722, also disappeared from the royal collections a few years later. See Loire, op. cit. (note 38), p. 285.
48 Valentin de Boulogne (c.1591–1632). As we have already noticed specific similarities between the Lesdiguières and Nancré collections for at least two paintings, this work could be the one from the Nancré (and then Orléans) collection, which is presently in the Los Angeles County Museum of Arts (inv. no. 1998.58.1, 111.7 x 146.5 cm). Attention may also be drawn to the beautiful Concert piece in Leipzig Museum der bildenden Kunst (inv. no. Nr 1669, 127 x 177 cm), for which we have no known history before the nineteenth century: see M. Mojana, Valentin de Boulogne (Milan, 1988), p. 118–19, no. 33; A. Priever in Maximilan Speck Von Sternburg. Ein Europäer der Goethezeit als Kunstsammler, exh. cat. Museum der bildenden Kunst and Haus der Kunst (Leipzig and Munich, 1998–99), pp. 85–6, and P. Rosenberg (ed.), Poussin, Watteau, Chardin, David. Peintures françaises dans les collections allemandes xviie–xviiie siècles, exh. cat., Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Haus der Kunst and Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland (Paris, Munich and Bonn, 2005–6), no. 155.
49 Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, called Guercino (1591–1666). Although the Lesdiguières painting might be either a long-lost canvas or a mere copy, we should remember that neither of the two autograph versions (Madrid, Prado Museum, and, formerly, Suida-Manning collection) has a known history before the eighteenth century.
50 Adam Elsheimer (1578–1610). The information provided by Félibien, op. cit. (note 25), allows us to identify this painting, already described as a tiny Tobias (‘petit Tobie’) in 1677, with the small landscape (‘petit paysage’) from the La Noue collection. The original piece, which might be the Lesdiguières painting, engraved by Hendrick Goudt as early as 1607, represented a major step for Elsheimer's fame in the Roman artistic world. The most famous version, quoted in various German collections since the eighteenth century, was bought by the Frankfurt Historisches Museum in 1886 (inv. no. B 789, 12.5 x 19 cm): see J. Held (ed.), Adam Elsheimer. Werk, künstlerische Herkunft und Nachfolge, exh. cat., Städelsches Kunstinstitut (Frankfurt, 1966–67), nos 4 and 5; and K. Andrews, Adam Elsheimer. Paintings, Drawings, Prints (Oxford, 1977), pp. 32 and 150, no. 20.
51 Most if not all four canvases by Claude Lorrain quoted in the Lesdiguières inventory of 1677 were formerly in Passart's cabinet. Hence, if the Landscape with shepherds (lv 79) and the copy of the landscape with a tower (lv 19), left behind in Grenoble, are now part of this city's museum collection, this reference might be identified with the last of the Claude paintings ordered by Passart, the View of Tivoli (lv 112) (98.1 x 135.1 cm) which forms part of the Royal Collection at Buckingham Palace. See K. Barron, ‘The most noble sight in the world: Claude's View of the Roman Campagna from Tivoli’, Apollo 156 (2002), pp. 50–2.
52 This painting is already listed in 1677. Rather than an autograph work, it would either be a good-quality copy or a workshop replica, such as that formerly in the Saint Louis Art Museum (102 x 130 cm). The only other painting by Veronese on this subject (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum; 143 x 289 cm), formed part of a set of four ordered by Philippe II, bought as early as 1648.
53 Jacques Foucquiers, or Fouquières (1590–1659). This was certainly the ‘paysage représentant un jardin’ by Fouquières already quoted in 1677. Although inaccurately recorded, this mention confirms that Lesdiguières probably owned the view that Fouquières painted around 1620, showing the whole project planned by Salomon de Caus for the Hortus Palatinus in Heidelberg, which was in fact was never completed. This painting is later recorded, first in St Cloud in 1685 as belonging to Liselotte de Bavière, Princesse d’Orléans, and later when most of the Orléans collection was sold in London in the 1790s. Its first British owner was Lord Gower, followed by the Earls of Sutherland, from whom it was later bought by the Heidelberg Kurpfalzisches Museum in 1909 (inv. no. 22, 178.5 x 263 cm).
54 Although the name is misread by the scribe, and despite its present poor conservation status, we would identify this portrait with another Van Dyck piece (124 x 95 cm) from the Crozat collection, presently in the Hermitage Museum. The sitter, identified by Michel Lasne's engraving is Marc-Antoine Lumague, one of the most famous scions of this family of Italian bankers and brokers, established since the sixteenth century in Lyons and Paris: see E. Larsen, The Paintings of Anthony Van Dyck (Feren, 1988), vol. II, p. 149, no. 365, where the name of the engraver has been confused.
55 Antonio Mariani called Della Corgnia (c.1584–1654). There is no such subject among the few paintings which are ascribed today to this artist, who was then better known as a dealer and copyist. See M. de Macco, ‘Note su Antonio Mariani detto della Corgna. Pittore "insigni nel copiare" e "stimatore delle pitture" ’, Studi in onore di Giulio Carlo Argan (Florence, 1994), pp. 192–217.
56 Ludovico Carracci (155 5–1619). His letters show that Passart was working very hard on trying to convince Condé, first to buy this ‘sposalisso’ from Hérault and then to have it partly restored by Mignard. Despite his efforts, it seems that Passart was finally left with the painting as it is apparently listed (‘Item, un tableau en hauteur, du Carache, représentant les espousailles de sainte Catherine’ est. 1,500 livres) in his own wife's inventory of 1684, for which the painting expert was Hérault. See M.-J. Massat and A. Schnapper, ‘Un amateur de Poussin: Michel Passart (1611/12-1692)’, Bulletin de la Société de l’Histoire de l’Art Français (1994), pp. 99–108, here p. 107. This rather high estimation would allow us to identify it later with the ‘Sainte Catherine du Carrache’ from the Nancré and Orléans collections. It is still considered today as a masterpiece, for the Orléans painting is no other than the wonderful Dream of Saint Catherine in Washington (Kress Collection, inv. no. 1952.5.59, 138.8 x 110.5 cm). See, most recently, A. Brogi, Ludovico Carracci 1554–1619 (Bologna, 2001), vol. I, pp. 182–3, cat. no. 68.
57 Giulio Pipi, called Giulio Romano (c.1492/95–1546). We know that in 1656, in the inventory of Jean-Baptiste de Bretagne already quoted (under no. 220) was a painting that would match the ‘Jupiter, de Julles Romaine [sic], allaité par une chèvre’ from the 1677 inventory. However, four years later, by which time there were two experts involved, there is no more mention of the goat Amalthée; it seems more likely that the Lesdiguières painting should be connected with the Jupiter enfant gardé par les Corybantes, a studio work acquired by the National Gallery, London, in 1859 (inv. no. ng 624, oil on panel, 106.4 x 175 cm), for the London painting similarly shows no goat. Meanwhile, some art historians have also linked the London painting with the one formerly in the collection of the Abbé de Camps (died in 1723): see C. Mignot, ‘Le cabinet de Jean-Baptiste de Bretagne (1650). Un "curieux" parisien oublié’, Archives de l’Art Français 26 (1983), pp. 71–87, here p. 79; and Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), p. 392.
58 Pier Francesco Mola (1612–66). Among the many ricordi of the large canvas executed c.1663–66 for Agostino Chigi, we would identify this very painting with one presently in the Louvre (inv. no. 397, 94 x 70 cm); for it was indeed sold by Hérault, to the King of France, in October 1685. See A. Brejon de Lavergnée, La collection de tableaux de Louis XIV. L’inventaire Le Brun de 1683 (Paris, 1987), p. 448 (L B 469).
59 Pieter Van Laër (1599–c.1642). We have no way of identifying either the ‘tableau d’animaux’ quoted in 1677, or any presently known versions of such a subject, for it was a popular theme among Northern artists working in Rome who, following Laër's nickname, were referred to as the Bamboccianti. See G. Briganti, L. Trezzani and L. Laureati, I Bamboccianti: pittori della vita quotidiana a Roma nel Seicento (Rome, 1983), and, more recently, D. Levine and E. Mai (eds.), I Bamboccianti. Niederlandisches Malerrebellen im Rom des Barock, exh. cat., Wallraf-Richartz Museum and Centraal Museum (Cologne and Utrecht, 1991–92).
60 François Perrier (c.1600–49). It is tempting to identify this important (and surprising) valuation of a work by a contemporary French artist with the famous Acis et Galathée in the Louvre (inv. no. 7161, 97 x 133 cm). The latter was offered to the King, with the core of his collections, by André Le Nôtre in 1693 (see J. Thuillier, ‘Les dernières années de François Perrier (1646–1649)’, Revue de l’Art 99 (1993), pp. 9–28, here p. 16; and Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 397–400). Despite the few references, either in the late-seventeenth or the early-eighteenth century, to other paintings ascribed to Perrier, which are apparently close in their titles or subjects (‘Polyphème & Galathée’, ‘Acis & Galathée’, etc.), the Lesdiguières and the Le Nôtre paintings are the only ones then presented as a ‘Triomphe ...’ But, we should also mention a slightly different version with, most notably, a standing Galatea, which was in a private collection in Paris c.1938 (a black-and-white photograph of this work is in the ‘Perrier’ file of the Service d’Étude et de Documentation du Département des Peintures du Musée du Louvre).
61 Unfortunately, no information was given four years earlier regarding the actual support (canvas, copper, panel) of this ‘autre tableau représentant une [Notre] Dame du Guide avec un saint Jean-Baptiste’; for this rather high estimate seems to confirm that this painting was considered as an autograph work.
62 Since the only known Madonnas painted by Ludovico Carracci on copper are shown enthroned with many saints around (see Brogi, op. cit. (note 56) (cat. nos. 27 and 117), this specific detail should have been pointed out by the experts; but the Lesdiguières painting is more likely to be the work of some pupil or follower of the Carracci.
63 Among the many versions quoted by the late S. Pepper, it is tempting to link this mention with the painting in the National Gallery, London (inv. no. 177, 79 x 68.5 cm), which was formerly in the Seignelay and Orléans collections; the more so as Seignelay (the eldest son and heir-apparent of Jean-Baptiste Colbert) was himself an important client of Hérault. See S. Pepper, Guido Reni (Novara, 1988), p. 271, no. 152; and Schnapper, op. cit. (note 1), pp. 369–71.
64 Gofredo Wals (c.1600–38/40). Passart, who was rather charmed by this painting, recalls that Hérault was asking 220 livres for it. This canvas support is quite uncommon among the few works presently ascribed to this artist.
65 This historical figure is unknown in the present corpus of the painter, not even through a copy after a lost work.
66 There is no known version of such a subject by Ludovico Carracci. In spite of the many mistaken attributions made as early as the seventeenth century between the works of the Carraccis and their pupils – a confusion easily stimulated for and by commercial purposes – we would be tempted to offer the following hypothesis: the Lesdiguières painting might have been a replica from the famous copper by Domenichino, offered by the Barberinis to Marie de Médicis, Queen of France, which was later bought back by her grandson from the Duchesse de Créquy, a cousin of Lesdiguières, in 1687. Apart from these family links, emphasized for the Moses of Veronese, it was common then to own painted copies of famous paintings, sometimes formerly sold by the owner. We know of at least one good-quality copy of this masterpiece bought in Paris as an autograph work by such a refined amateur as Loménie de Brienne: see Schnapper, ‘La cour de France au xviie siècle et la peinture italienne contemporaine’, in J.-C. Boyer (ed.), Seicento. La peinture italienne du xviie siècle et la France (Paris, 1990), pp. 423–37, here p. 424.
67 Philip Wouvermans (1619–68) or his son, Pieter (1632–82), both prolific genre painters. A good example of this subject is provided by the two canvases, showing many hunters and birds of prey, ascribed to Philippe which have formed part of the Spanish royal collections since the late-seventeenth century (Madrid, Prado, inv. no. 2149, 50 x 66 cm, and inv. no. 2150, 80 x 70 cm).
68 As indicated by many contemporary examples, the fact that these quite large paintings are described as unframed (‘sans bordure’) would mean that they usually adorned either a ceiling or the panelled walls of some unspecified room in the Hôtel de Lesdiguières.
69 This canvas, which also supposedly formed part of the Hôtel's décor, appears to be quoted earlier, in nearly the same words (‘Item, un Appolon [sic], sur toile, sans bordure ... 18 lts’), among the paintings of the grandfather of Lesdiguières, Charles de Créquy, in 1638. See Boyer and Volf, op. cit. (note 4), p. 30 (no. cxxxiii).
70 The other ‘peintre-expert’ involved in Lesdiguières inventory is Antoine Paillet (1626–1701). Despite his own Grand May for Notre-Dame, the Martyrdom of St Bartholomeow of 1660 (Lyons, Cathédrale Saint-Jean), and a few other religious paintings, he is known mostly for his decorative works either in Versailles, for the King, or in Paris, for the Duc de Sully.
71 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 80, fol. 353.
72 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 81, fol. 60.
73 The size of the letter sheet, already provided by Macon, op. cit. (note 1), is 31 x 20 cm.
74 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 82, fol. 291.
75 This is Claude II Mallier du Houssay (c.1600–81). Formerly a counsellor to the Parliament, then promoted as a Conseiller d’État, he was, for quite a short time, the French ambassador in Venice (1638–40). Although he was a formerly married man (and a widower twice), he became bishop of Tarbes, in the south-west of France, in April 1649.
76 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 82, fol. 311.
77 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 85, fol. 196.
78 Musée Condé Archives, Chantilly castle, p. 86, fol. 140.
Correspondence: Address for correspondence Moana Weil-Curiel, Institut Nationale d'Histoire d'Art, 2 rue Vivienne, F-75002 Paris. mweilc{at}aol.com