Diploma Lecture Series 2012 Absolutism to Enlightenment: European Art and Culture 1665-1765

Diploma Lecture Series 2012 Absolutism to enlightenment: European art and culture 1665-1765

Madame de Pompadour

Jessica Priebe

27/28 June 2012

Lecture summary: This lecture looks at the meteoric rise of Jeanne-Antoinette le Normant d’Etioles, née Poisson and subsequently the marquise de Pompadour, who became Louis XV’s mistress in 1745 and remained his loyal confident until her death in 1764. During the course of her nineteen year relationship with the king, Pompadour amassed an impressive collection of fine and decorative objects and played an active role as a patron and protector of the arts. Accordingly, this lecture will look at her rise to power and how her elevation was expressed through the choices she made as a patron. This lecture will also consider a number of portraits commissioned by the marquise, particularly those produced after 1750, when she was no longer the titular mistress of the king. These portraits disseminate a signature iconography, which not only conveys the changed relationship between Pompadour and the king, but also her attempt to redefine herself through a series of works created in her image.

Slide list: 1. François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour at her Toilette, 1758. Oil on canvas. Cambridge, Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University Art Museums. 2. Alexander Roslin, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières. The Marquis de Marigny, 1764. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 3. Charles-Antoine Coypel, Pierre Jélyotte in the Role of the Nymph Plataea in Jean-Baptiste Rameau's Comic Opera Platée ou Junon jalousie, c. 1745. Oil on canvas. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Paintings. 4. Louis Tocqué, Charles-François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, 1750. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 5. Jean-Marc Nattier, The Duchesse de Châteauroux, 1740. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 6. Charles-Nicolas Cochin the younger, The Yew Tree Ball, 1745. Pen and black ink, gray wash, watercolor, and white gouache highlights. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings. 7. Carle Van Loo The Marquise de Pompadour as a Shepherdess, c. 1760. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 8. Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, Head-and-Shoulders Portrait of Louis XV, 1748. Pastels on blue-gray paper. Paris, Musée du Louvre, Department of Prints and Drawings. * 9. Jean-Marc Nattier, Mme de Pompadour as Diana, 1746. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 10. Jean-Marc Nattier, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour as Diana, 1748, Versailles, Musée National de Château. 11. Jean-Marc Nattier, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour as Diana, 1752. Oil on canvas. Cleveland, The Cleveland Museum of Art. Proudly sponsored by

12. Lucca Penni, Diane de Poitiers as Diana, c. 1550, Oil on Canvas, Paris, Musée du Louvre. 13. Pierre Mignard, Portrait of Madame de Montespan 1670-78. Oil on canvas. Geneva, Cailleux Collection. * 14. Carle Van Loo, The Arts Imploring Destiny to Spare Pompadour’s Life, 1764. Oil on canvas. Pittsburgh, Frick Art Museum. 15. Louis Tocqué, Portrait of the Marquise de Marigny, 1755. Versailles, Musée National de Château. 16. Chinese Porcelain Shell, Kangxi period, 1662-1722, French gilt mounts, 1756. New York, Wrightsman Collection. 17. Jean-Claude Duplessis, with figure decoration attributed to Charles-Nicholas Dodin, Pot-Pourri Vase, 1756-57. Soft paste porcelain. New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art. 18. Etienne Maurice Falconet, Friendship (Figure of Madame de Pompadour), 1755. Biscuit Porcelain. Durham, Bowes Museum. 19. Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, L'Amitié, sous les traits, c. 1750s. Marble. Paris, Musée du Louvre. 20. Jean-Baptiste Pigalle, L’Amour embrassant l'Amitié, c. 1750s. Marble. Paris, Musée du Louvre. * 21. François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 1759. Oil on canvas. London, The Wallace Collection. 22. Carle Van Loo, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour as Sultana Taking Coffee, c. 1750-54. Oil on canvas. Saint Petersburg, Hermitage Museum. * 23. François Boucher, The Setting of the Sun, 1752. Oil on canvas. London, The Wallace Collection. 24. François Boucher, The Rising of the Sun, 1753. Oil on canvas. London, The Wallace Collection. 25. François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, c. 1750. Oil on paper. Paris, Musée du Louvre. 26. Maurice-Quentin de La Tour, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, c. 1775. Pastel with gouache highlights. Paris, Musée du Louvre. 27. François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, c. 1758. Oil on canvas. London, The Victoria and Albert Museum. 28. Jean-Marc Nattier, Portrait of Marie Leczinska, 1748. Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château. * 29. François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 1756. Oil on canvas. Munich, Alte Pinakothek. 30. François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 1763-64. Oil on Canvas. London, The National Gallery.

Reference: Goodman, Elise. The Portraits of Madame De Pompadour: Celebrating the Femme Savante. University of California Press, 2000. Posner, Donald. ‘Mme. de Pompadour as a Patron of the Visual Arts.’ Art Bulletin 72, no. 1, March (1990): 74-105. Scott, Katie. 'Framing Ambition: The Interior Politics of Mme de Pompadour.’ Between Luxury and the Everyday: Decorative Arts in Eighteenth-Century France. Edited by Katie Scott and Deborah Cherry. Massachusetts: Oxford: Victoria: Blackwell Publishing, 2005, pp. 110-152. Lajer-Burcharth, Ewa. ‘Pompadour’s Dream: Boucher, Diderot, and Modernity.’ Rethinking Boucher. Edited by Melissa Hyde and Mark Ledbury. Los Angeles: Getty Publications, 2006, 229- 252.

Jessica Priebe is an independent scholar and lecturer who specialises in seventeenth-and eighteenth- century French art. She received her PhD from the University of Sydney, authoring a thesis on the collection of François Boucher. Jessica is the winner of the 2008 Dora Wiebenson prize. She recently published two essays on the subject of illustration and ornament and their role in the visual and material culture of eighteenth-century France. Jessica lectures in art history and theory at the University of Sydney and at the College of Fine Arts (COFA).

Jean-Marc Nattier, Mme de Pompadour as Diana, 1746.Oil on canvas. Versailles, Musée National de Château.

Carle Van Loo, The Arts Imploring Destiny to Spare Pompadour’s Life, 1764. Oil on canvas. Pittsburgh, Frick Art Museum.

François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 1759. Oil on canvas. London, The Wallace Collection.

François Boucher, The Setting of the Sun, 1752. Oil on canvas. London, The Wallace Collection.

François Boucher, Portrait of Mme de Pompadour, 1756. Oil on canvas. Munich, Alte Pinakothek

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