Offered by Galerie Nicolas Lenté
Pierre Gobert (Fontainebleau, 1662 – Paris, 1744)
Presumed Portrait of Marie-Louise-Élisabeth d’Orléans, Duchess of Berry, as Venus, circa 1715–1720
Oil on canvas, 141 × 109 cm
In an important 18th-century carved and gilded wood frame, later regilded
Framed dimensions: 175 × 142 cm
Provenance
- Drouot sale, Paris, 13 May 1907
- Acquired by Eugène Bretel, a Norman industrialist; Château de Chiffrevast, Manche, until 2006
- Former collection of His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Abdullah Al Thani, Hôtel Lambert, Paris
A large and imposing historiated portrait of a young princess depicted as Venus, seated three-quarter length in a monumental gilt-wood chariot. At her side stands a nude Cupid, partly wrapped in a deep green drapery tied about his arm, raising a flaming torch — an emblem of the goddess’s power to kindle love in every heart. With an elegant gesture of her right hand, the young woman pours from a small vial, while her left arm rests gently upon the child’s shoulder.
She wears a white satin gown embroidered with silver thread and lined in blue satin. Its broad, rounded décolletage reveals her shoulders and enhances the milky whiteness of her breast and décolleté. A voluminous pink mantle envelops the figure and falls in a cascade of rich, luminous draperies along her right side. The refined interplay of silvery white, deep blue, vivid pink and dark green demonstrates Gobert’s mastery in rendering luxurious textiles and orchestrating sumptuous colour.
The sitter’s full oval face, with its very pale and delicately rosy complexion, stands out against a brown ground opening onto a twilight sky. Her large blue-grey eyes, rounded cheeks, fine mouth and softly rounded chin give her an unusually individual presence. Her blonde, powdered hair, dressed high in the fashion of the Regency, contributes to the brilliance of this fresh and generously modelled figure.
These features support the identification of the sitter as Marie-Louise-Élisabeth d’Orléans (1695–1719), eldest daughter of Philippe II d’Orléans, the Regent of France, and Duchess of Berry from her 1710 marriage to Charles de France, Duke of Berry. The comparison with Gobert’s portrait of the princess, painted around 1715 for Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria’s Gallery of Beauties at Nymphenburg Palace, is especially compelling: the same fair, powdered hair, blue eyes, full rosy cheeks, broad face with soft features and generous physical presence recur in both portraits.
The attribution to Gobert and the proposed identification are further strengthened by his portrait of Charlotte-Aglaé d’Orléans, future Duchess of Modena and sister of the Duchess of Berry, now in Kassel, inv. SM 1.1.848. For this other daughter of the Regent, Gobert employed an almost identical formula: a princess dressed in a pale gown and a pink mantle, arranged beside a gilt chariot and accompanied by a nude Cupid, draped in green and carrying a torch. The present painting develops this compositional scheme on a more ambitious scale: the Duchess of Berry appears fully as Venus, sovereign of Love, enthroned in her gilt chariot.
Pierre Gobert was among the foremost court portraitists of the late reign of Louis XIV and the Regency. Closely associated with the leading French princely circles and active for the Orléans family, he excelled in portraits that combine the careful observation of a sitter with the splendour of silks, embroidery, coloured mantles and gallant allegory. The exceptional scale of this canvas, the richness of its composition and the triumphant imagery of Venus are entirely consistent with the rank of a daughter of the Regent and legitimised granddaughter of Louis XIV.
Related Works
Pierre Gobert (1662–1744), Portrait of Marie-Louise-Élisabeth d’Orléans, Duchess of Berry, circa 1715, oil on canvas, 140 × 105 cm, Nymphenburg Palace, Munich, Great Gallery of Beauties of Elector Max Emanuel of Bavaria.
Pierre Gobert (1662–1744), Portrait of Charlotte-Aglaé d’Orléans, Duchess of Modena, circa 1721, oil on canvas, 141 × 110 cm, Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel, Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Wilhelmshöhe Palace, Kassel, inv. SM 1.1.848.
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