Portrait of a Woman, Perhaps Madame Claude Lambert de Thorigny (Marie Marguerite Bontemps, 1668–1701) | Nicolas de Largillierre | All | European Paintings | Collection Database | Works of Art

Signatures, Inscriptions, and Markings

Signed and dated (lower left, on fountain): peint / par N. de / Largillierre– / 1696

Gallery LabelThe sitter is traditionally identified as the wife of Claude Lambert de Thorigny, president of the Chambre des Comptes and owner of the Hôtel Lambert on the Île Saint-Louis in Paris. Largillierre was a portraitist of the wealthy bourgeoisie. His Flemish training is reflected in the parrot and flowers in the foreground, while the accentuated folds of the gown accord with the linear style of the French Royal Academy.

NotesA note apparently provided by Gimpel & Wildenstein at the time of this portrait's acquisition identifes it as a Portrait of Helène Lambert de Thorigny, lent by Wildenstein to the Guildhall Exhibition, London, in 1902 (where it is called "Madame Lambert de Thorigny"—no maiden name is provided). A second early note attached to the first one identifies the subject as Marie Marguerite Bontemps, Mme Claude Jean Baptiste Lambert de Thorigny, b. 1668, d. 1701; she would have been 29 years old at the time this portrait was painted. Sortais [Ref. ca. 1912], who is known to have accepted contemporary identifications of subjects when he was preparing his [unpublished] catalogue raisonné, lists the MMA picture twice, as Marie Lambert de Thorigny and as the Marquise de Simiane.

Marie de l'Aubespine, wife of Nicolas Lambert de Thorigny, died in 1679. An engraving of her is reproduced on p. 101 of Ref. Rosenfeld, 1981; her pl. 18b reproduces an engraving of Hélène Lambert, Mme François Marie de Motteville, and pl. 18c reproduces a painting of a woman said to be Hélène Lambert de Thorigny [sic for Hélène Lambert, later de Motteville?] in the Honolulu Academy of Art. An engraving of the Marquise de Simiane is reproduced in pl. 18a in Ref. Rosenfeld, and a portrait of Mlle Lambert de Thorigny [Hélène?] as Cleopatra, by Largillierre, is reproduced as pl. 2 in Ref. Roland Michel 1966. None of these comparative images bears a particular likeness to the woman represented in the MMA portrait. Furthermore it is difficult to find life dates or something approaching a family tree for the Lamberts as they are not titled nobility.

Provenancemarquis d'Ussel, château d'Oscamp, Belgium; [Gimpel & Wildenstein, Paris and New York, 1902–03; sold to MMA]

Exhibition History

London. Art Gallery of the Corporation of London. "Selection of Works by French and English Painters of the Eighteenth Century," April 22–July 26, 1902, no. 21 (as "Madame Lambert de Thorigny," lent by M. Wildenstein).

Palm Beach. Society of the Four Arts. "Portraits, Figures and Landscapes," January 12–February 4, 1951, no. 26.

Chattanooga. George Thomas Hunter Gallery of Art. "Opening Exhibition," July 12–August 3, 1952, unnumbered cat.

Milwaukee Auditorium. "Metropolitan Art Museum $1,000,000 Masterpiece Exhibition," March 7–14, 1953, unnumbered cat. (p. 16).

Austin, Tex. City Coliseum. "Texas Fine Arts Festival: Metropolitan Museum $1,000,000 Collection of Old Masters," April 18–26, 1953, unnum. checklist (p. 3).

Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. "Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait," September 19–November 15, 1981, no. 18 (as "Portrait of a Woman").

References

Catalogue of the Paintings in the Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1905, p. 98, no. 501, as "Marie Marguerite Lambert de Thorigny," by Largillierre.

Elisabeth Luther Cary. "The Scrip: Some of the Portraits in the Metropolitan Museum." International Studio 37 (April 1909), p. LX, ill.

Georges Sortais. Largillierre manuscript. [ca. 1912] [the manuscript of a catalogue raisonné of the oeuvre of Largillierre, begun ca. 1912 and preserved in the Cabinet des Estampes, Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, Da 58, vols. 3 and 5], lists our picture twice, once as Marie Lambert de Thorigny and again as the marquise de Simiane.

O. Kellner in Allgemeines Lexikon der bildenden Künstler. 22, Leipzig, 1928, p. 384.

Georges Pascal. Largillierre. Paris, [1928], p. 63, no. 76, p. 68, no. 127, lists it as no. 76, "Madame Lambert de Thorigny," 55 x 42 in., belonging to Wildenstein, Paris, and also lists it under no. 127, as "La Marquise de Simiane," 53 x 40 in., signed and dated 1696, at the MMA.

Charles Sterling. "XV–XVIII Centuries." The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. 1, Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 95–97, ill., identifies the sitter as "Madame Claude Lambert de Thorigny (?)" and calls it "an excellent example of Largillière's middle manner . . . [which] still accords with the linear style of the Royal Academy of Painting when under the domination of Charles Le Brun".

René Gimpel. Diary of an Art Dealer. English ed. New York, 1966, p. 298, observes that his father's biggest sale of the 1902–03 New York season was to the Metropolitan Museum: this Largillière and a Nattier (03.37.3) for $70,000.

Marianne Roland Michel. "Of Women and Flowers . . . [in L'art du dix-huitième siècle, advertisement supplement to Burlington Magazine]." Burlington Magazine 108 (July 1966), p. iii, mentions this portrait as "presumably representing the younger Madame Lambert de Thorigny, the wife of Claude".

Georges de Lastic. "Largillierre's Portrait of Madame Aubry." Minneapolis Institute of Arts Bulletin 63 (1976–77), p. 75, identifies the sitter as "the very young and witty Marquise de Simiane, grand-daughter of Madame de Sévigné".

Myra Nan Rosenfeld in L'art du connaisseur/The Art of Connoisseurship. Exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Montréal. Montreal, 1978, pp. 94, 102, fig. 7, comments on the strong influence of Peter Lely in this portrait; erroneously records the date as 1699.

Recent Acquisitions: French Paintings & Sculptures of the 17th and 18th Century. Exh. cat.London, 1979, unpaginated, under no. 11, compares it with Largillierre's "Portrait of a Young Woman as Venus with her Son as Cupid," signed and dated 1698, and notes that our sitter is wrongly identified as Madame Lambert de Thorigny.

Myra Nan Rosenfeld. Letter to Dean Walker. December 21, 1979, observes that Sortais [Ref. 1912] never gave reasons for his identifications of sitters, and that Jean Cailleux, who knew him, asserts that Sortais merely accepted titles that were current at the time; further notes that she has looked at the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Sortais' files and in the collection of portraits, and found no engravings of Mlle or Mme de Thorigny.

Myra Nan Rosenfeld. "Nicolas de Largillierre's 'Portrait of the Marquise de Dreux-Brézé'." Apollo 109 (March 1979), p. 205, fig. 6.

Myra Nan Rosenfeld. Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait. Exh. cat.Montreal, 1981, pp. 100, 104, 107, 120–23, 129, no. 18, ill., comments on the influence of Lely in this portrait, noting that Largillierre has taken the statue of a nude female figure from the upper right corner of Lely's "Portrait of Anne Hyde, Duchess of York" (Scottish National Portrait Gallery, Edinburgh), and thereby suggests "an allegorical allusion to the woman as Venus or a water nymph, while depicting her dressed in contemporary clothes"; considers this sitter too young to be Marie de l'Aubespine (wife of Nicolas Lambert de Thorigny), and notes that no likenesses of Marie-Marguerite Bontemps (wife of Claude Lambert de Thorigny) appear to have survived; finds it difficult to confirm any identification of the sitter, as Largillierre was more interested during this period "in painting a generalized image of a beautiful woman than a detailed portrait of a specific person".

John Pope-Hennessy. "Roger Fry and The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Oxford, China, and Italy: Writings in Honour of Sir Harold Acton on his Eightieth Birthday. London, 1984, p. 231.

Myra Nan Rosenfeld. "Largillierre: Problèmes de méthodologie." Revue de l'art no. 66 (1984), p. 72.

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