| | | | | | | | Document | Sale Catalog F-A1144 | |
| Sale Location | sur les lieux, en sa maison, rue Grange-Batelière, près le Boulevard, Paris, France | | Seller(s) | Gramont, Béatrix de Choiseul-Stainville, duchesse de
from catalog: Feu la ci-devant duchesse de Gramont | | Expert | Lebrun, Joseph-Alexandre | | Commissaire-Priseur | Girardin, Jean-Baptiste-Sébastien | | Lugt Number | 5531 | | No. of Painting Lots | 50 | | Notes | The objects included in the present sale were formerly the property of Béatrix de Choiseul-Stainville, born in Lunéville in 1730, and following their marriage in 1759 the wife of the duc de Gramont. She was the sister of Etienne-François, duc de Choiseul (1719-1785), minister of foreign affairs and then minister of war under Louis XV prior to his dismissal in 1770. The duchesse is generally described as a woman of considerable ambition who exerted some influence over her brother's decisions in respect to court affairs. She was also active in cultural matters and a correspondent of Voltaire, but under the revolutionary government she was judged to be an enemy of the people and, following her arrest during the Terror, was guillotined in 1794. The present sale was held in her home three years after her death.
The sale included 40 lots of paintings, almost entirely works by Dutch, Flemish and French artists, as well as 6 lots of drawings, gouaches and miniatures, 13 lots of bronze sculpture, including ornamental pieces, followed by 22 lots of porcelain. The furniture was assembled under a single lot number and is not described in detail. There were also a few lots of prints and jewellery.
It is not known how the collections were formed. It is possible that some pieces were inherited from her father, the marquis de Stainville, but most were probably acquired piece by piece during the years following her marriage, i.e. between 1760 and 1789. One of the paintings, lot 3 by Le Nain, had appeared in the De Clesne sale on Dec. 4, 1786 (it is now attributed to Abraham Willemsen, an imitator of the Le Nains, and is in an English private collection). Lots 13 and 14 by Brekelencam and Beschey may be identifiable with works of the same description sold at public auction in 1790 and 1791, but the bulk of the collection remains without any prior history.
Judging from the prices, the sale was reasonably successful in spite of the difficult economic situation prevailing at the time. Of the paintings, lot 7, a picture by Cornelis Dusart depicting an old man playing a fiddle with an entourage of children, and lot 9, a scene of drinkers and dancers by Jan Steen, brought the highest prices. Both were bought by Boileau -- perhaps the commissaire-priseur Louis-François-Jacques Boileau representing an anonymous buyer -- the first for 460 francs and the second for 500 francs, although the price of the latter is uncertain. A large and unattributed bronze equestrian statuette of Henry IV was bought by J.A. Lebrun, the expert who organized the sale, for 499.19 francs. Aside from the lot by "Le Nain" mentioned above, relatively few of the paintings have been identified. Lot 8, an interior by "Berkheyde," is certainly the painting by Job Berckheyde that appeared at a sale in Monaco in 1987. (B. Fredericksen) | | Catalog Location(s) | FLNY Annot. with all buyers and prices as well as many added lots. The annotations are presumably those of J.A. Lebrun. Ex-LRB catalogue.
BPG [photocopy in Provenance Index Sales Files] Not annot. It probably belonged to the dealer J.B.P. Lebrun. | | See Also | Sale Contents | | | Art Sales Catalogues Online | | | Digitized Catalog - Frick | | | |
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