The Mysterious Sitter. Part I
Art detective investigation during the #StayAtHome
This amazing portrait caught my eye back in 2018. I was looking through my insane art-only Instagram feed and stumbled upon the detailed close-up details of the rich and juicy fabric of the sitter’s nightgown.
Looking forward to finding this piece in a high-resolution somewhere online I searched for the artist’s name and the painting title and found nothing, but the suggestion it was painted by Carle van Loo (1705–1765).
In this two-part series of the Hidden Gem blog articles I’ll try to capture my journey of researching the identity of the sitter of this remarkable portrait and take him out of such a pityful obscurity.
In Part I of this series I’ll challenge the existing suggestions and this way pave my way to the real person in question.
Carle van Loo was one of the most prominent artists of the French Rococo era. A favourite of Madame de Pompadour and first painter to King Louis XV he was mostly famous for his history genre paintings and portraits.
The lavish oil on canvas portrait 143*108 cm | 58*42.5 inch in size is now part of the collection of the former royal Château de Versailles near Paris in France where it is still listed as an unknown sitter.
Mind the traditions of the Age of Enlightenment
For no apparent reason the sitter was identified as Jacques-Germain Soufflot (1713–1780) — a renowned French architect of the mid-18th century. [He is the one behind the Panthéon building in Paris]. Well, that’s what was mentioned in the private letter concerning the portrait that was acquired for the collection of King Louis-Philippe by M. White in 1835 [source, I even managed to find the original documents online to prove it, though lost the link, unfortunately].
However, almost nothing supports this suggestion in my opinion.
First of all, the present portrait could be easily dated to 1730s or even slightly earlier. Sitter’s outfit and, what’s more important, his hairstyle [the white curly wig here] takes us to this very decade and hardly much later.
Moreover, that means Soufflot was pictured here at only 17–27 years of age (while probably still being a student of the French Academy in Rome), which is highly unlikely judging by the quite mature look of the sitter.
Secondly, portrait traditions of the Age of Enlightenment presumed some indication of the sitter’s occupation to be well-pronounced in the picture. Like, scientists would be painted together with their tools and books, astronomers and geographers — next to the globe, musicians would be holding their instruments and so on.
This way, we could expect a portrait of an architect to contain some reference to the buildings he designed and/sketches he is working on.
Nothing like that is shown here in our portrait in question.
Moreover, I have recently run across a real Soufflot’s portrait in a book about 18th century Paris. Here it is — painted in 1767 by Louis-Michel van Loo (another artist from Van Loo family) and reflecting the real look of the famous architect [look at the Louis XV style wig which has nothing to do with the style of previous decades].
Note, that there is another “Portrait of Soufflot” [see №901 in the picture above], this time by Carle [Charles-André] van Loo, alas, no picture was attached. Could it be the one I am trying to identify in this article? It may well be the case since the trace of the real sitter’s identity was lost already in the beginning of the 19th century.
This way the man on the portrait under investigation is definitely not Jacques-Germain Soufflot. Then who is he?
Sherlock Holmes method in action
Why not use a deductive method of Mr. Holmes and try to make some further assumption that could perhaps point us in the right direction.
What if this portrait is perfectly in line with the Age of Enlightenment canon and shows the sitter together with the thing that indicates his occupation and life endeavours?
Sounds like a plan, right? Ok, let’s have a closer look at the portrait once again — is there anything particular that brings us to the conclusion? [On typing this last word the spell-checker changed it to «confusion» and was not far from the truth somehow ;-)]
Well, seems like there is no such subject here and we didn’t come closer to the solution. No globe, no books, no sketches, no nothing — the column, the sky, the green draper — every picture has that!
But, wait a minute! There was something that initially caught my attention and made me stop and look at this picture precisely when scrolling the feed.
The rich floral fabric of the sitter’s banyan, that’s what it was!
Really, his posture and the composition itself adds to the feeling that he might be exposing something important and outstanding — the dress and the fabric. He must be the one who created this dress or designed the silk he is so proud of!
I got back to this portrait several months ago and posted it to my Smart Art Facebook group where I invited everyone to admire the picture, and discuss the potential identity of the sitter. Right I did as the highly relevant name of Jean Revel (1684–1751) — prominent silk designer from Lyon — was suggested by one of our members Andrey Kovalev. [Btw, you are more than welcome to join Smart Art!].
Jean Revel seemed a very appropriate figure for me at first sight. You be the judge:
- he would definitely have a reason to be portrayed with nothing but such a gown and still make a statement of his occupation and achievements;
- the floral pattern of fabric matched perfectly with the known preserved samples in museums [see the pictures below];
- in the period of 1730s he was about 50 years of age. Well, the guy on the portrait is looking a little bit younger, though, who knows, maybe Revel did carry his age well?
Luckily, there is a single commonly accepted portrait of Jean Revel survived till our days. He commissioned it to the now-almost-forgotten French Royal Academy painter Donat Nonnotte (1708–1785) in 1748 [that means it was painted about 10–15 years later than the portrait in question]. Revel is pictured here at the age of 63 looking, well, as a 63-year-old man, no younger for sure.
Of course, I tried to compare the faces of the sitters, their facial features and everything. Rather unlikely it seems that these portraits could be painted from one and the same person [even with a 10 years gap].
Moreover, they are so different in terms of style, tonality and composition. How could they vary so much in every minor detail while being commissioned by the very same person who had quite an established taste and was an artist himself?
Another thing that left no chance for our mystery portrait to feel like the one of Revel is the background of our picture. Well, there is nothing special out there — a column, rich drapery, that’s it. The only thing it may suggest that it’s a part of an interior setting of a palace-type of a building. And the details of the designer’s life of a commercial bourgeois in provincial Lyon leave no room for such an elevated background setting:
“None of the furnishings was brand new; many were possibly a little old-fashioned, in so far as may be deciphered from an inventory. He had four rooms and a closet to himself, including the kitchen where his housekeeper slept”, — that’s how Revel was living (source).
In addition, I have found a full list of Revel’s clothing inventory [from boots to wigs, literally] and obviously there was nothing even close to the colourful silk ensemble of our unknown sitter.
As a side note, Revel could definitely afford way more than he owned and used in his ordinary life, moreover, he left a huge inheritance to his daughters. In other words, he was wealthy enough, so this kind of a very modest lifestyle was the matter of his own choice.
Unfortunately, all these internal debates made me drop the idea that the mysterious sitter could have been Jean Revel, called the ‘Raphael of silk design’ by his successors in the trade.
So, I began my hunt for an aristocrat from 1730s leaving in Paris known for his love of fashion and exquisite dresses.
A clue to the mystery?
There is one distinctive feature in the portrait that promised some advancement in my research. Look at the black ribbon that is going down from the right shoulder to the left under-arm of our sitter. It belongs to the so-called Royal Order of Saint-Michel.
The Order of Saint Michael (fr.: Ordre de Saint-Michel) has been a chivalric order in France since 1469 and was abolished with the French Revolution in 1790 [it was revived in 1816 to then finally be gone in 1830]. It was the primary Order in France until it was superseded by the Order of the Holy Spirit (fr.: Ordre de Saint Esprit). Originally destined to the aristocracy, from 17th to 18th centuries it became an order of civil merit, which distinguished many artists, architects, collectors, and people of lettres.
A-ha!
Then that’s the kind of person I should aim for!
Unfortunately, not any comprehensive list of the knights [Chevaliers] of the order exists in the libraries online. So, again, I had to do a brute-force search of all potential candidatures living in that timeframe.
And yes, I had to exclude all the Chevaliers of the Order of the Holy Spirit [who were at the same time holders of the Saint-Michel regalia] —like why would one expose the minor Order in such a grand portrait if he had a Cordon Bleu? [the blue moire ribbon was the symbol of the Order of the Holy Spirit]
So, all these Marquis de Marigny, Duke de Choiseul, and Count de Maurepas, and many other potential sitters unfortunately, didn’t fit for that very reason.
Then suddenly, getting drowned in a sea of archival data [luckily available online thanks to various French governmental and cultural entities] I finally couldn’t stand my gut feeling any longer.
I had a mad idea [or not that mad, hopefully] and I decided to go for it!
See whom I believe to be the real Mystery Sitter in the Part II of this Art Investigation carried out while staying at home.
Short and necessary caveat — all the findings here are subjective and sometimes couldn’t be proved without the access to the unique archive materials, which I obviously do not have in this #stayathome period of time. However, I do sincerely hope that my thoughts and ideas could help to find the proof of the sitter’s identity and verify and reestablish it according to the proper art history academic traditions.
