Jean Charles Garnier d'Isle (1697–1755) | Maurice Quentin de La Tour | All | European Paintings | Collection Database | Works of Art

Gallery LabelLa Tour completed this portrait in about 1750; it is one of three different pastels by the artist of the sitter. Garnier d'Isle, "dessinateur des jardins du roi," designed the parks and gardens of Bellevue, Crécy, and La Celle Saint-Cloud for the royal mistress of Louis XV, Madame de Pompadour. The portrait is typical of La Tour, who favored smooth, blended handling of the pastel medium. This or another of the three pastels was exhibited to critical acclaim at the Paris salon of 1751.

NotesGarnier's father had been contrôleur des bâtiments for the Tuileries and the Luxembourg. His wife was the daughter of Auguste Desgots, architecte du roi, and great-niece of Le Nôtre. The sitter eventually held the titles of contrôleur des bâtiments and dessinateur des jardins royaux—designing for Madame de Pompadour the parks and gardens of Bellevue, Crécy, and La Celle Saint-Cloud.

La Tour made two other pastels of the same sitter: a half-length of Garnier seated (Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, Mass.; formerly David Weill collection) and a bust-length preparatory study for that work (Musée Antoine Lécuyer, Saint-Quentin). One of these three pastels was exhibited to critical acclaim at the Salon of 1751.

Provenancethe sitter (until d. 1755); his daughter, Mme Louis Antoine (Adélaïde Julie) Mirleau de Neuville (1755–d. 1780); by descent in the Mirleau de Neuville family (1780–1871); Albert-Louis-François Mirleau de Neuville de Marcilly (from 1871); his son, Jean-Joseph-Albert Mirleau de Neuville de Marcilly, comte de Belle-Isle, Vernon (by 1872–at least 1877, as Antoine Pierre Mirleau de Neuville); his daughter, Jeanne, comtesse de Joybert, château de Lilly, Fleury, near Lyons-la-Forêt (by 1880–d. 1938, as Jean Charles Garnier d'Isle); her daughter, Mme Pierre (Marie-Antoinette) Duffour (1938–d. 1990); her daughter or daughter-in-law (1990–2001; sold to Colnaghi); [Colnaghi, London, 2001–2002; sold to MMA]

Exhibition History

Paris. Salon. 1751, no. 48.

References

"Exposition des ouvrages de l'Académie royale de peinture faite dans une des sales du Louvre le 25 novembre 1751." Mercure de France (October 1751), p. 158 [see Refs. Fleury and Brière 1920, p. 37, and Debrie and Salmon 2000, pp. 162, 169 n. 45].

A[uguste]. Jal. Dictionnaire critique de biographie et d'histoire: errata et supplément pour tous les dictionnaires historiques d'après des documents authentiques inédits. 2nd ed. Paris, 1872, pp. 1318–19.

Élie Fleury and Gaston Brière. Catalogue des pastels de M.-Q. de La Tour: Collection de Saint-Quentin et Musée du Louvre. Paris, 1920, p. 37.

Albert Besnard and Georges Wildenstein. La Tour: La vie et l'oeuvre de l'artiste. Paris, 1928, p. 143, no. 158.

Élie Fleury and Gaston Brière. Collection Maurice-Quentin Delatour à Saint-Quentin: Catalogue. Saint-Quentin, 1954, p. 53, under no. 22.

Christine Debrie and Xavier Salmon. Maurice-Quentin de La Tour: Prince des pastellistes. Paris, 2000, pp. 161–63, 169 n. 51, colorpls. 83–84 (overall and detail).

Katharine Baetjer in "Recent Acquisitions, A Selection: 2002–2003." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 61 (Fall 2003), p. 24, ill. (color).

Tim Warner-Johnson and Florian Härb in "2002: The Year in Review at Colnaghi." Old Master Paintings and Drawings. London, 2003, p. 14, fig. 8 (color).

Marjorie Shelley. "Pastelists at Work: Two Portraits at the Metropolitan Museum by Maurice Quentin de La Tour and Jean Baptiste Perronneau." Metropolitan Museum Journal 40 (2005), pp. 105–19, figs. 1, 3, 6, 9 (overall, details, and infrared reflectogram), colorpl. 8.

Katharine Baetjer in Philippe de Montebello and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1977–2008. New York, 2009, p. xiii, fig. 2 (color).

Curatorial Department

European Paintings: All