Huntington Gets a Vigée Le Brun Portrait, 2nd Ahmanson Gift
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| Élisabeth Louise Vigée Le Brun, Portrait of Joseph Hyacinthe François-de-Paule de Rigaud, comte de Vaudreuil, about 1784. Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation. The Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens |
The sitter was one of the great scoundrels of the Ancien Régime. He was a slave-owner, social climber, and schemer with anger issues. Vaudreuil broke one of Marie Antoinette's ivory billiard cues after losing a game. He was also an amateur actor, appearing in the anti-royalist satire The Marriage of Figaro. Louis XVI banned the play, and Marie Antoinette seems to have concluded that Vaudreuil was giving privilege a bad name.
It's been speculated that the count was romantically linked with Vigée Le Brun. Not in doubt is that Vaudreuil was Vigée Le Brun's most important patron. The artist painted four versions of his portrait and kept one—the one the Huntington has acquired—for the rest of her life. It measures about 51 by 38 inches. A nearly identical painting has long been in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Its colors look less vibrant than the Huntington's in online images. Christopher Knight has seen the Huntington painting in person and pronounces it "a knockout."
This is the second Ahmanson gift of art to the Huntington, following a Thomas Cole landscape last year, and after halting the foundation's longtime support of LACMA art acquisitions.
The Vigée Le Brun is to go on view this month on the first floor of the Huntington Gallery. The French artist's scintillating textures will offer a counterpoint to the broad brushstrokes of the Gainsboroughs and Reynoldses.
Comments
But hey, for $500,000 the Ahmanson keeps its name in the news. Though I dare say they won't be getting the same coverage David Geffen has gotten lately. Got to spend more than $100 million to draw the attention of the NYT.
No wonder LACMA dumped them for David Geffen and his $150 million. That $150 million is more than all the Ahmanson gifts combined.
Also, even better, since the Wilshire Blvd museum is no longer receiving acquisitions from the Ahmanson Foundation, it's a good thing the Zumthor concrete blob will be smaller than the previous buildings were. Budget in the black and no Ahmanson. Win-win.
Moreover, the many windows of the new building symbolize just how much more transparent LACMA now is. Win-win-win!
At $500K, the price paid at auction for this painting is hardly an auction record for the artist.
To see what connoisseurs think about this painting, I consulted the Met Catalogue for its Vigee Le Brun show. One of the essays claims that there are better male portraits by this artist.
The auction lot essay asserts that this was a preparatory study for two other works. That also explains the price.
... It will be interesting to see how the Huntington tries to contextualize the work. While it does show us what was wrong with the old regime, it's hardly an intentional commentary on the subject. The work remained in the artist's possession until her death. No one outside her social circle probably saw it. Indeed, there is a certain complicity with the existing order in knowing what risk such lavish portraits posed and keeping them in the closet.