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artist or maker

Drouais, François-Hubert (b.1727, d.1775)

Date

1757

exhibition date

Place of production

Paris, France

Medium

oil on canvas

Type of object

paintings

Accession number

130.1996

Oil painting in portrait orientation of a boy handing a bunch of grapes to a young girl with a basket of fruit at her feet. The girl sits on a low seat to the right of centre, her body turned diagonally to the right and her head turned face on. She wears a low-cut white dress with blue sleeves; blue lacing on the bodice; blue lining to the overskirt which is pulled up on her lap; and two blue stripes on the hem of the skirt; she also wears a white bonnet with a wide blue brim and ribbon tied under her chin and blue shoes over white stockings. She holds up some grapes in her skirt with her right hand. The boy appears to the left, standing on his tiptoes with his body turned diagonally to the right and his face straight on. He wears a round straw hat, a pink silk jacket and breeches over a white shirt and stockings. He holds some grapes down to the girl with his right hand and picks some grapes with his raised left hand. Grape vines and a tree appear to the right. There is a large wicker basket with grapes at lower right, behind the girl's skirts, and an upturned shallow wicker basket with fruit on the floor to the left of the girl.

Posed as grape-harvesters, the true wealth and finery of this couple is revealed in their sumptuous silk clothes. This was one of eight portraits Drouais succesfully showed at the Salon of 1757, which also included its pendant at Waddesdon (acc. no. 131.1996). In several of these portraits Drouais depicted aristocrats in informal pastoral guises, a theme that he would return to throughout his career.

Commentary

Henri-Louis-Marie prince de Guémenée married his cousin Victoire-Armande-Josephe de Rohan Soubise in January 1761. This portrait was made before their marriage and depicts the betrothed pair as playful youths. At the 1757 Salon, Drouais also exhibited a painting of the children of the Duc de Bouillon as rustic peasants. These works reflected the French nobility's interest in asserting their connection with the land. The sign of a bountiful grape harvest handed from the prince to his future wife suggests the pair's forth-coming union will be equally fruitful.

The couple went on to have five children. Later in life, the prince was appointed High Chamberlain of France in 1775. Given to extravagance, he was declared bankrupt in 1783 owing 33 million livres. At the Revolution he emigrated to Germany, where he died in 1808. His wife was appointed Governess for life to the Enfants de France in 1767. She emigrated with her husband but returned alone in the early years of the Consulate. Victoire was the half-sister of the Princess de Condé, depicted with her husband in Drouais's other painting at Waddesdon (acc. no. 131.1996).

The son of a portrait-painter, Drouais trained with his father and later with François Boucher, Charles-Joseph Natoire and Carle van Loo. He was made an associate member of the Académie Royale in 1755 and was received in 1758 as a portrait painter. In 1756 he was commissioned to paint the two young sons of the Dauphin, another work shown at the Salon of 1757. He achieved great success at the exhibitions of the Académie. He was very popular with the court nobility for his portraits and pastels, particularly of children. He painted Louis XV and his mistresses, Madame de Pompadour and Madame du Barry, during the late 1750s and 1760s, as well as the young wife of Louis XVI, Marie-Antoinette during the 1770s.

Phillippa Plock, 2012

Physical description

Dimensions (mm) / weight (mg)

1420 x 950

Signature & date

not signed or dated

History

Provenance

Acquired by Baron Edmond de Rothschild (b.1845, d.1934) from Guiraud; by descent to his son James de Rothschild (b.1878, d.1957); inherited by his wife Dorothy de Rothschild (b.1895, d.1988); then to a Rothschild Family Trust.

Exhibition history

Paris Salon, 1757, no. 107, as 'M. le Prince de Guémenée et Mademoiselle de Soubise peints dans le même tableau sous les haits de vendangeur et de vendangeuse'
'L'Art au XVIIIe siècle', Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 1883-1884, with incorrect title of Comte d'Artois and his sister

Collection

Waddesdon (Rothschild Family)
On loan since 1996

Bibliography

C Gabillot, Les Trois Drouais (III), Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1905, 384-400; pp. 388-39, ill.; as owned by Edmond de Rothschild

Other details

Subject person

Henri Louis de Rohan, Prince of Guéméné, Sitter
Victoire de Rohan, Princess de Guéméné, Sitter

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