Boy with a Black Spaniel

When writing about the 1767 Salon, the critic Denis Diderot (1713–1784), mentioned that one of Drouais's sitters was accompanied by "un chien d'ébèn avec des yeux de jais" (a dog of ebony color with eyes of jet). The artist's exhibits were a portrait of the comtesse de Brionne (location unknown), number 61, and, under number 62, several portraits ("Plusieurs Portraits"). What must be the primary version of Boy with a Black Spaniel is signed and dated 1766: it could have been exhibited at the Salon in the following year and mentioned by Diderot, but there is not enough information about the other portraits Drouais showed either to prove or disprove this possibility.

The boy in the 1766 picture is described as blond, with black eyes, and wearing a rose-colored coat with large buttons of the same fabric over a blue waistcoat with gold buttons. Here the same boy is dressed in brown. While the face and lace are painted with the usual care, Drouais is uninterested in the dog's anatomy.

Katharine Baetjer 2014

Jules S. Bache, New York (1926–d. 1944; his estate, 1944–49; cats., 1929, unnumbered; 1937, no. 49; 1943, no. 48)

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Bache Collection," June 16–September 30, 1943, no. 48.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Collection of Jules S. Bache. New York, 1929, unpaginated, ill., identifies this picture as Drouais's portrait of the son of President Desvieux, which was no. 82 in the Salon of 1761, from the collection of the Earl of Pembroke, and with Wildenstein.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Bache Collection. under revision. New York, 1937, unpaginated, no. 49, ill.

A Catalogue of Paintings in the Bache Collection. rev. ed. New York, 1943, unpaginated, no. 48, ill.

Josephine L. Allen and Elizabeth E. Gardner. A Concise Catalogue of the European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 1954, p. 31.

Charles Sterling. The Metropolitan Museum of Art: A Catalogue of French Paintings. Vol. 1, XV–XVIII Centuries. Cambridge, Mass., 1955, pp. 145, 148–50, ill., as a replica by Drouais of a portrait Diderot describes in the 1767 Salon under no. 62, a boy holding a dog of ebony with eyes of jet; identifies the original as the portrait signed and dated 1766.

Else Marie Bukdahl. Diderot: Critique d'art. Vol. 1, Théorie et pratique dans les Salons de Diderot. Copenhagen, 1980, pp. 145, 274 n. 189, fig. 58, illustrates our picture as a replica.

Katharine Baetjer. European Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Artists Born Before 1865: A Summary Catalogue. New York, 1995, p. 379, ill.

Katharine Baetjer. French Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art from the Early Eighteenth Century through the Revolution. New York, 2019, pp. 239–41, no. 74, ill. (color).

The frame is from France and dates to about 1890 (see figs. 1–3 above). This oval Louis XVI style revival frame has a back frame of oak with an upper frame and fronton or pediment of limewood. The sight edge is carved in a lotus pattern followed by a narrow fillet and flat frieze. A bold passage of egg and dart carved ornament lies within the flat fillet which defines the top edge. An outer hollow terminates at pearling at the back edge. The carved bowknot and clasp at the top secure carved floral sprays of roses, lilacs, and daisies. The surface retains its period water gilding with matte and burnished highlights on a red bole ground. The frame may be based on an eighteenth-century example in the Waddesdon collection stamped by Etienne Louis Infroit (1720–1794).

Timothy Newbery with Cynthia Moyer 2017; further information on this frame can be found in the Department of European Paintings files

According to Wildenstein & Co. in 2000, the firm bought a version of Boy with a Black Spaniel, oval, signed "Drouais le fils" and dated 1766 (58 x 52 cm), at the Monsieur D[elaroff, St. Petersburg] sale, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, February 26, 1913. It had belonged to the late comte de Pembroke (sale, Paris, June 30, 1862, no. 13) and Meffre père (sale, Paris, March 9–10, 1863, no. 27). Wildenstein sold it later in 1913 to a member of the Rothschild family. See the 1913 sale catalogue and Henri Frantz, "La Curiosité," L'Art décoratif 1 (1913), pp. 199–200, 202, ill.

In a manuscript catalogue of Jules Bache's collection written after 1943, Louis S. Levy states that Bache bought the painting that is the subject of this entry "from Wildenstein" on May 17, 1926, but Wildenstein & Co. cannot confirm the sale nor find any trace of the work in their records.