Amphitrite
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Oil painting of a woman, either a Bacchante or Amphitrite, used as a mirror-head, after a painting by Nicolas Fouché, or possibly by him. The woman is shown in three-quarter length, dancing. Her right arm is raised over her head, holding up a billowing red drapery. She wears a brown drape tied with a blue ribbon that reveals her breasts and right thigh. She wears ivy leaves in her long and curly hair that blows out in the breeze. Behind her to the left there is a tree trunk, the foliage obscured by the frame, and sea; to the right, is a a rocky cliff with trees.
Nicolas Fouché painted a very similar composition to this painting, known from an early 18th-century engraving by L. Desplaces. It has been suggested that this is actually Fouché's painting cut down to accommodate it into the top of the mirror for the gallery of the Maréchal Hector de Villars constructed sometime around 1732-1733. The cropped tree on the left possibly supports this theory.
Fouché was the son of painter who worked in Troyes. He came to Paris where he joined the guild of painters, the Académie de Saint-Luc, in March 1689. He is reputed to have trained with Pierre Mignard. He is known for his mythological and allegorical female figures, similar to this painting. Twenty of his works were engraved in the late 17th and early 18th centuries.
Desplaces's engraving identifies the woman as a Bacchante. These were wild female followers of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine, known for their excess and revelry. The woman's dancing pose and lack of attention to her falling drapery suits this theme. However, the painting is known at Waddesdon as Amphitrite, queen of the sea. The sea appears in the background.
Neptune fell in love with Amphitrite, but she hid from him at the bottom of the ocean. Dolphins found her and brought her back to marry him. Representations of this moment, known as the Triumph of Amphitrite and Neptune, often include women on shells with billowing drapery over their heads. Though there is no shell evident, the drapery in this painting is reminiscent of this story.
The four mirrors (acc. nos 3634.1-4) and mirror-head paintings (acc. nos 3635.1-4) in the Dining Room at Waddesdon came from a grand town house in Paris built by the Maréchal Hector de Villars between 1731-1733. The mirrors that lined the gallery brought brilliance and light to the room. Because de Villars did not have a large painting collection, it was decided to use copies of famous paintings for the mirror-heads, around 12 in number. The paintings were of mythological characters, mostly beautiful women. They may have had some allegorical significance. The sumptuousness of de Villars's house was celebrated in a newspaper of 1746. Engravings show the plan and interior decoration of the house. Three of the mirror-heads now at Waddesdon are visible in the engravings.
The mirrors, along with panelling, were acquired by the dealer and collector Alexander Barker around 1850. He sold most of them to Baron Mayer de Rothschild who installed them in his house at Mentmore, not far from Waddesdon. After Barker's death in 1873, he must have left the remaining parts of the gallery decoration to his nephew, Mr Roe, for it was he that sold them to Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild around 1876, for installation in the newly completed Dining Room.
The architect of Waddesdon, Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, may have already had some knowledge of these paintings. It was his father that gave the Hôtel de Villars a new front in 1849. The panelling and mirrors were probably removed around the same time during the renovation of the house.
Phillippa Plock, 2011
Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)
1016 x 1498 (sight size)
Signature & date
not signed or dated
Provenance
- Painted for Claude-Louis-Hector Maréchal de Villars (b.1653, d.1734); purchased by Alexander Barker (d.1873) from the Hôtel de Villars probably around 1850 and before 1853; inherited by his nephew Mr Roe; acquired by Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild (b.1839, d.1898) from Mr Roe around 1876; inherited by his sister Alice de Rothschild (b.1847, d.1922); inherited by her great-nephew James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); bequeathed to Waddesdon (National Trust) in 1957.
Collection
- Waddesdon (National Trust)
- Bequest of James de Rothschild, 1957
Bibliography
- Mercure de France; December 1746, p. 147
- Daniel Wildenstein, Nicolas Fouché peintre de l'Académie de Saint-Luc vers 1650-1733, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 64, November 1964, 311-313; on engravings after Fouché, no. 4 shows the Bacchante related to this painting
- Ellis Waterhouse, Anthony Blunt; Paintings: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor; Fribourg; Office du Livre, The National Trust; 1967; p. 294, cat. no. 140; dated c. 1745
- Bruno Pons, Geoffrey de Bellaigue; Waddesdon Manor Architecture and Panelling: The James A. de Rothschild Bequest at Waddesdon Manor; England; Philip Wilson Publishers; 1996; p. 326, fig. 292, p. 351, no. 42
Subjects
- Mythology/Gods & Goddesses/Amphitrite
- Figures/Female
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Marine (The Sea)
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Countryside
- Everyday Life/Entertainment/Dancing
- Mythology/Mortals/Bacchante
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Trees & Plants/Ivy
- Nature, Landscape & The Elements/Trees & Plants