Jean-Laurent Mosnier (1743-1808)

Lot 252
Go to lot
Estimation :
10000 - 15000 EUR
Result without fees
Result : 70 000EUR
Jean-Laurent Mosnier (1743-1808)
Portrait of Louis Auguste Le Tonnelier, Baron de Breteuil (1730-1807) Oil on canvas 72 x 58 cm. Signed, lower left: Mosnier Provenance: - Most likely commissioned by the Baron de Breteuil to the painter, - then by descent until today Bibliography: Unpublished This superb portrait, with an expression mixed with dignity and gravitas, is to be compared with the famous full-length portrait of the Baron de Breteuil, presented by Mosnier in 1787 at the Salon (n°222). Baron Grimm commented favorably on it with these words: "All the portraits of M. Mosnier announce a true talent. The one of M. the baron de Breteuil is of a firm tone and of a beautiful effect. The head is very similar and all the details are well rendered." It is likely that the baron commissioned our painting in anticipation of the gift he was going to make of the large version to Cardinal Loménie de Brienne, Controller General of Finances and principal Minister of State; which is now preserved in the Louvre Museum (RF1963 4). It should be noted that our portrait varies from the other in many but discreet details: the posture and expression of the model, the fall of his habit, the position of the orders of chivalry. In the large version, the baron is adorned with a luxurious sword (presented in this sale). At the time he was Minister of Paris, particularly concerned, like Louis XVI, to improve the daily life of the most humble, he points to Poyet's plans for the new Hôtel-Dieu de Paris, laid out on a superb Boulle desk (of which he owned many pieces of furniture). The idea was, as for the cemetery of the Innocents, to transfer it outside the center of the capital for reasons of hygiene, a project whose execution was made impossible by the Revolution. As for Mosnier, after having attracted the favors of some members of the court, he fled the revolutionary madness at work in France to continue to live from his art, and to continue to live at all. He was well received in England, a country where many first-rate portraitists were already practicing. Then it was Hamburg, in 1796, and St. Petersburg, in 1800, where he was triumphant, even being elected professor at the Imperial Academy.
My orders
Sale information
Sales conditions
Return to catalogue