Jean‐Baptiste Perronneau 1715/16–1783
NG 6435 
Jacques Cazotte

Humphrey Wine, 2018

Extracted from:

Humphrey Wine, The Eighteenth Century French Paintings (London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018).
Humphrey Wine and Virginia Napoleone, Former Owners of the Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings in the National Gallery: Appendix to ‘The National Gallery Catalogues: The Eighteenth‐Century French Paintings’ (London: National Gallery Company, 2018).

Probably 1753

Oil on canvas, 91.6 × 72.9 cm

Signed top right: Perronneau

Provenance

Probably inherited by the sitter’s son, Jacques‐Scévole Cazotte; possibly among the four family portraits noted at 44 rue du Cherche‐Midi, Paris, in the posthumous inventory of Ursule‐Thérèse Amiel, wife of Jacques‐Scévole Cazotte, dated 14 May 1847;¹ by descent probably to Jacques‐Charles‐Alexandre de Cazotte of the French Diplomatic Service and first Director of the International Office of Public Hygiene, Paris;² said to have been acquired in Paris before 1918 by Meyer Elias Sassoon³ but more probably bought in June 1927 (as a ‘Portrait d’homme en rouge’) by Wildenstein & Cie, Paris, perhaps from Jacques‐Charles‐Alexandre de Cazotte’s sister, Blanche Desportes de la Fosse,⁴ and sold by that firm in 1928⁵ to Mozelle Sassoon (see the Appendix to the present volume on the NG website), the widow of Meyer Elias Sassoon; by inheritance to her daughter, Mrs Violet Leah Fitzgerald of Davis Street, London W1;⁶ her posthumous sale, Christie’s, London, 2 July 1976, lot 46 where bought by the National Gallery for £88,000, including premium.⁷

Exhibitions

London 1932 (207; Commemorative Catalogue 1933, no. 223); Manchester 1932 (99);⁸ 6 Hamilton Place, London, 12–14 March 1935 (short‐term loan in aid of the Royal Northern Hospital; no catalogue) ;⁹ Paris 1937 (204);¹⁰ London 1954–5 (2); Edinburgh 1963 (62); London 1968 (553).

Related Works¹¹

• (1) An anonymous copy of NG 6435, commissioned for Cazotte’s older brother, Chrétien‐Nicolas and thereafter in Jacques Cazotte’s collection at Pierry (Marne).¹² Oil on canvas, 92 × 75 cm. Now in the Musée des Beaux‐Arts Châlons‐en‐Champagne.
• (2) An anonymous copy of the Châlons painting is in Château de la Marquetterie, Pierry ¹³
• (3) An oval variant version of NG 6435, probably not by Perronneau, in which the sitter wears a blue jacket embellished with gold braid, is in the collection of a descendant of the sitter in Paris. It is neither signed nor dated.¹⁴
• (4) A copy of NG 6435 is in the collection of another descendant of the sitter in Paris.
• (5) An anonymous engraving in reverse after NG 6435, or [page 371][page 372] the Châlons painting, but in an oval, is in BN , Estampes.¹⁵
• (6) The frontispiece of Contes de J. Cazotte published by Quantin, Paris 1880, is an engraving in reverse by Adolphe Lalauze based on NG 6435, or on a copy after it.

Technical Notes

Generally in good condition, but there is some wear in the background and in the shadowed area of the neck and cheek; some retouched damage along the edges, especially at the top right corner, where the X‐radiograph shows that a small triangular piece of canvas has been replaced, and through the signature, which has probably been reinforced; very small, scattered losses in the background, in the wig and neck, and to the left of the face; and a diagonal loss some 5 cm long in the proper left sleeve. NG 6435 was cleaned and restored in 1976, soon after its acquisition. Some restorations then made in the background have since blanched, and it is possible that there has also been some blanching of the original paint at the left. The support is a fine, plain‐weave canvas. Its tacking edges have been removed but the canvas is cusped all round, showing that the painted image has not been cut down, although tacking holes along the left and bottom edges suggest that it was once on a smaller stretcher. The lining appears to be early‐ to mid‐nineteenth century, like the stretcher.

The stretcher has numerous labels and marks on the back:

• (1) a small label with a blue printed border and in manuscript thereon: ‘685 ^d’
• (2) a manuscript label: ‘Jacques Cazotte / littérateur français / 1720 – 1792’
• (3) an oval label on which is printed in red: ‘Chenue Emballeur, 5, rue de la Terrasse, PARIS’ and written in black ink: ‘Wildenstein / J.Chenue’¹⁶
• (4) a label probably of the 1950s, in manuscript: ‘Mme. Meyer Sassoon / Perronneau Cazotte’, printed: ‘Chefs d’Oeuvre de l’Art Francais’, and again in manuscript: ‘91’
• (5) a printed and typed label: ‘OHMS…National Gallery of Scotland 1963 / “Allan Ramsay, his Masters and Rivals” Jacques Cazotte by Jean‐Baptiste Perronneau / The Property of Mrs. Meyer Sassoon, / Pope’s Manor / Binfield / Bracknell / Berks / No. 62’
• (6) in chalk: ‘Bracknell’
• (7) in stencil: ‘239 XT’
• (8) a printed label: ‘O.M. DEPT / No.0536 / Date photographed’
• (9) in chalk twice: ‘Lot 46’.

There is a double ground of pale orange‐brown below and slightly greenish brown on top. Examination under a microscope showed that the upper ground layer shines through the roughly similar colour of background, so tending to intensify the colour of the latter. Both the upper ground and the background are similar in constitution, consisting of a varied mixture of lead white, yellow ochre, black pigment and a little green (perhaps green earth). There is a green pigment mixed in with the white in the shadows of the lace cuffs and the neckband. The sitter’s deep pink coat contains mainly vermilion with white, with red lake pigment in the shadows of the folds.¹⁷ Pentimenti to the outline of the sitter’s proper right shoulder and to the bow at the back of the neck are visible. Examination by infrared reflectography (fig. 1) shows that the tricorn hat was originally held at a different angle, with the apex pointing towards the sitter’s proper left eye. It also shows evidence of underdrawing in a liquid material around the nostril and to define the lips and the contour of the proper left shoulder; and that the nose was once a little to the left; the head may once have been more in profile, showing less of the sitter’s right eye and cheek; the bow at the back of the neck replaced a standing collar; and, as might be expected, that the lacework was painted over the rest of the sitter’s costume. No evidence that the painting once bore any legible date has emerged. Arnoult has noted that an X‐radiograph of Perronneau’s Portrait of Lambert Sigisbert Adam, called Adam the Elder (Paris, Louvre), which was completed by July 1753, shows a facture close to that of NG 6435.¹⁸

Discussion

Jacques Cazotte is now best known as author of Le Diable amoureux and other fantastical fiction.¹⁹ His supposed prophecy of the French Revolution and the course it would take was once given wide currency, but is now regarded as apocryphal.²⁰ He was also a colonial administrator, a maker and supplier of fine wine, an amateur painter, a collector of old master paintings and a dabbler in counter‐revolutionary circles. It was this last activity that led him to the guillotine. There he met his death with great courage, exclaiming to the crowd: ‘Je meurs comme j’ai vécu, fidèle à Dieu et à mon Roi’ (‘I die as I have lived, faithful to God and to my king’).

1719–59

Jacques Cazotte was born on 7 October 1719 in Dijon. His parents were Bernard‐Denis Cazotte (died 1741), a notary and official of the Burgundian provincial government, and Marie Taupin (died 1745). He had six brothers and seven sisters. Schooled at the Jesuit College in Dijon, Cazotte learned English, Spanish and Italian, with a view to a career in foreign affairs. He then obtained a law degree (1739) and was admitted to the bar the following year. It was in late 1740 or early 1741 that he went to Paris. Cazotte obtained a post at the Ministry of Naval Affairs, then headed by the comte de Maurepas, to whom he was introduced by the good offices of the Bishop of Châlons, Claude‐Antoine de Choiseul‐Beaupré. Thanks to Maurepas, Cazotte was given a grant to pursue his legal studies, and in 1743 he gained his brevet d’écrivain ordinaire de la Marine, in effect the qualification to be an administrator for the Ministry of Naval Affairs. In that role he went to Le Havre; then to Brest, where he managed a shipyard; to Spain and Africa in 1744, on board Le Dauphin, where he maintained the ship’s records; and to Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1745, in a similar role on board L’Alcide. From 1747, promoted to Ecrivain Principal, he had the role of supervising the provisioning of French [page 373] colonies from his station at Rochefort. It was there that he contracted the first of the fevers that would subsequently afflict him. Later that year Cazotte was again promoted, this time to Contrôleur de la Marine aux Iles de Vent.²¹ In July of that year he was posted to Martinique, where from May 1749 he attended most sittings of the Conseil Supérieure de la Martinique.²²

Maurepas’s dismissal in March 1749 did not stop Cazotte’s career progress. Appreciated by the new minister de Rouillé, he was once again promoted, this time to [page 374]Commissaire Ordinaire de la Marine on 1 April 1750,²³ and was ordered to Saint Lucia in the winter of 1750–1 to oversee the destruction of the French fortifications there, following the terms of agreement between England and France. Nevertheless, these were difficult years for Cazotte. His salary was largely unpaid; he was lodged in a miserable furnished room; his relationship with the Governor, the marquis de Bompard, was difficult; and his illness returned. It was only in June 1752 that he took leave, arriving at Brest in July and thence to Paris.²⁴ He appears to have been in Martinique again by April 1753 but was back in France by that November,²⁵ this time only briefly, since he had returned to Martinique by January 1754,²⁶ and soon found himself embroiled again in conflict. This time it concerned the respective powers of the civil and military authorities, with Cazotte wishing to uphold the former, in accordance with regulations. He also began to quarrel with de Rouillé. In response to the British offensive during the Seven Years War (1756–63) Cazotte was charged with preparing a mission to secure Guadeloupe; however, the 22 ships he organised did not arrive until after the island had surrendered on 1 May 1759. He wrote to the duc de Choiseul seeking permission to leave Martinique, citing his poor health and deteriorating eyesight, and by October 1759 had returned to France suffering from scurvy and severe eyesight problems. He wrote to Choiseul about the surrender of Guadeloupe, claiming that, among other things, Bompard was incapable, and that the support given to him (Bompard) at Versailles was one of the reasons why Cazotte had decided to leave Martinique.²⁷ Showing what may well have been an unusual concern for public service at the time, he also made proposals for reform of the colonial administration, some of which were eventually adopted.

Accused on his return to France of selling permits to foreign ships and undertaking private business using state ships, he wrote again to Choiseul to defend himself. To his health problems and career conflicts was now added financial difficulty. On leaving Martinique he had sold his slaves and livestock and transferred his cash, worth 130,000 livres in all, to the local Jesuits, against bills of exchange valid in France. The procedure had worked the previous time he had left Martinique and must have seemed a much safer means of transferring wealth by sea, given the risk posed by the British navy. However, the French Jesuits failed to honour the bills, and although in 1761 Cazotte obtained judgement against them for the full amount, in the end he retrieved only 7,500 livres. The next year the Society of Jesus was suppressed in France, its wealth confiscated and its creditors hung out to dry.

1760–89

The year 1760 saw a considerable change in Cazotte’s fortunes. He had written the previous November to Choiseul seeking permission to retire. This was granted, as was the pensionable post of Commissaire Générale. As his reasons to Choiseul he had cited both his health, which he described as ruined, and the cost of living in Paris. He wrote that he had decided to spend part of his capital to buy a property some 60 to 80 leagues away, where he could live cheaply and end his days in peace.²⁸ Then on 10 April 1760 his elder brother, Canon Chrétien‐Nicolas (born 1704), archdeacon of the diocese of Châlons, died, leaving his wealth to Jacques. This included vineyards and La Marquetterie, a chateau at Pierry, near Châlons‐sur‐Marne (renamed Châlons‐en‐Champagne in 1998), a distance of some 170 km or 30 leagues from Paris (fig. 2). The inheritance was transformative. It allowed Cazotte to live in ease for the rest of his life. He maintained an establishment in Paris,²⁹ while Pierry was close enough to enable him to attract the capital’s intellectual beau monde – his visitors included mathematician and educationist the marquis de Condorcet and the author of The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro, Caron de Beaumarchais.³⁰

The relative leisure in which Cazotte now lived gave him time to make and market his wines, of which he was a considerable producer.³¹ He was always interested in his vines and the quality of the wine he produced, and his efforts resulted in a prestigious list of clients. This included the wealthy tax farmer Laurent Grimod de la Reynière, whose gastronomic and literary suppers Cazotte attended;³² the Polignacs, intimates of Marie‐Antoinette; the baron de Besenval;³³ the vicomte de Ségur, Besenval’s illegitimate son, and nominal son of Besenval’s best friend, the marquis de Ségur;³⁴ and possibly Mme de Pompadour’s brother, the marquis de Menars (more often known as the marquis de Marigny).³⁵ The other transformative event in Cazotte’s life was his marriage in July 1761 to Elisabeth Roignan (fig. 3), daughter of Simon Roignan, Lieutenant Civil et Criminal du Fort‐de‐France, Martinique, and of Françoise‐Elisabeth Aubin.³⁶ The couple had three children, Jacques‐Scévole, Simon‐Henri and Elisabeth,³⁷ and, to judge from surviving correspondence, the union was happy. In a letter to his ‘chère Zabeth’, undated but said probably to be of about 1777–81, Cazotte wrote to allay her concerns about her fading looks: ‘You fret, my angel, on your beauty fading with time. You believe that our affection will become less. You think that the time that must pass will be filled with nothing but repulsion, oh! My heart, what idea do you have of yourself, of me and of God.’³⁸

With his material and personal life secure, Cazotte was able to pursue one of his other predilections, that for writing.³⁹ His first published work had been La Patte du Chat (1741), a romantic fairy tale of lovers parted by cruel destiny who were [page 375] reunited after various adventures and the intervention of a good fairy. Many elements were derivative of the work of other authors, such as Crébillon, but it was also a light‐hearted parody of the genre of exotic tale. In addition it attacked the esprit philosophique, which Cazotte described as ‘sécheresse et de symétrie’. An anti‐philosophe stance was to be a constant in Cazotte’s writings. The following year saw publication of his Les mille et une fadaises, a title which harked back to Antoine Galland’s Les Mille et Une Nuits. This book, which was a fairy‐tale satire against women, the beaux esprits and the Philosophes, and a satire against what Cazotte saw as the taste of aristocratic women for the fairy‐tale genre itself, enjoyed more success than the scarcely noticed La Patte du Chat.⁴⁰ He published nothing during his years abroad, but in the period 1752–3, for much of which he was in Paris, he followed the Querelle des Bouffons, a war of pamphlets concerned with the relative merits of French and Italian music. In February 1753 he himself wrote a pamphlet summarising the strengths and weaknesses of both, without taking sides, but later that year penned anonymously Observations sur la lettre de Jean‐Jacques Rousseau sur la musique française, a scathing response to Rousseau’s dismissal of French music.⁴¹

Cazotte wrote with greater regularity from 1760, when he became settled in France. He wrote a number of fables, four of which were translated into English and published in London over twenty years before their publication in French.⁴² His epic prose poem Ollivier appeared in 1763. It was an immediate success and was translated into German in 1769. A story set in the period of the Crusades, it tells of the exploits of Ollivier, overcoming a multitude of obstacles for the love of Agnès, with the help of his faithful companion‐in‐arms, Enguerrand. Finally Agnès’s father consents to her marriage to Ollivier and the couple go to live in Palestine, of which Ollivier is the sovereign. As Cazotte acknowledged in the preface, he was especially influenced by Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, the widely read and diffused sixteenth‐century epic and, since one of his lifelong friends was Jean‐François Rameau, nephew of the composer Jean‐Philippe Rameau, he must have been aware also of the latter’s Les Paladins (1760), a comic opera indirectly based on Ariosto’s work. Ollivier contains a number of passages evoking rustic simplicity as well as expressions of sensibility – his hero frequently sheds tears – but also elements of fantasy and magic. Then followed in 1766 (revised, republished and first performed two years later) a text co‐written with Michel‐Jean Sedaine for the comic opera, Les Sabots by Egidio Romualdo Duni, which inspired François Boucher’s painting of the same name in 1768;⁴³ then, among other works, Le Lord impromptu, nouvelle Romanesque (1767), a supposed translation from English that is critical of English society and manners; and in 1772 the first version of Cazotte’s best‐known work, Le Diable amoureux, nouvelle espagnole, a story about a devil disguised as a beautiful woman trying to take possession of a man, in which is mixed allegory and realism and fantasy.⁴⁴ This last was translated into German in 1780 and into English in 1793 and again in 1810, and it may have inspired Matthew Gregory Lewis’s Gothic novel The Monk: A Romance (London 1796).⁴⁵ It has been summarised as being about the struggle between good and evil, an allegorical expression of all temptations and of the risks inherent in human curiosity, in which the temptress is an apologist for science and a spokesperson for the Philosophes.⁴⁶

1789–92

For a few years around 1778–81 Cazotte was initiated into Martinism, named after Louis‐Claude de Saint‐Martin, disciple of Martinez de Pasqually, who had founded a Masonic cult, the Ordre des Chevaliers Maçons Elus‐Coëns. The order, whose members were practising Christians, sought for mankind to reintegrate with its original spiritual state through fervent prayer, ritual and invocation, with a view to eliciting signs of the supernatural. The aim was not material but spiritual unity with the divine, and interior regeneration. Saint‐Martin turned away from many of the order’s magical practices, but still emphasised the ecstatic moment.⁴⁷ Possibly because he had failed to achieve any signs of the supernatural, Cazotte, who was profoundly attached to the dogmas and ceremonies of Catholicism, left the order declaring himself hostile to ‘la détestable jonglerie’. Nevertheless, he retained his interest in a more intimate and restrained form of meditation according to Saint‐Martin’s ideas. Probably both Cazotte’s flirtation with Martinism and his move away from it, or at least from its external practices, owed much to the influence of Félicité‐Geneviève‐Elisabeth de Jarente, marquise de la Croix (born 1720), who had once been Saint‐Martin’s protector (as well as Beaumarchais’s mistress). She preached a dubious form of mysticism, and when in September 1789 she retired to Pierry, it adversely affected the climate of serenity of the place. Henceforth mysticism and politics became as mixed in Cazotte’s life as in his writing, and Good and Evil, so often evoked, found concrete examples for him in the events of the Revolution.

Cazotte was totally hostile to the spirit of enquiry of the Philosophes, about whom he wrote, ‘for all their curiosity, on matters of importance they don’t see the end of their nose’.⁴⁸ For Cazotte it was the rejection of religion preached by the Philosophes that was the cause of Revolutionary disorder, and Good, represented by Louis XVI, had to be saved from the hands of Evil, represented by the Revolution.⁴⁹ In a letter of 26 August 1791 to his friend Pouteau, Cazotte claimed that [page 376]the Revolution originated in ‘the plan which M. Satan had conceived against the race of Saint Louis’,⁵⁰ and during the course of the following year he assimilated Louis XVI with God: ‘Deign to reply to me, God of goodness: I must love my king, because I love you: there can be no separation between venerating him and venerating you’.⁵¹ Cazotte’s objection was to the Jacobins and to the other extreme elements of the Revolution, not to the correction of abuses. He wanted the monarchy reinforced and a return to the laws of the past, writing to his wife from Paris on 1 January 1789: ‘The courtiers, masters of the kingdom, share its riches with their concubines, stamp on morals, on diligence, knowledge, integrity, put the king in irons and all good citizens into a state of slavery; they have destroyed all the rules which govern us and murder us with laws promulgated by the Council and outrageous regulations.’⁵² In the same letter he welcomes the Third Estate becoming ‘an order of respectable citizens’ and states that ‘my children will profit from the consequences of the fortunate changes I predict, France became no longer habitable; there will be a return to the ancient laws’.⁵³ Cazotte’s insistence on respect for the (supposed) ancient laws is consistent with his planned assertion of municipal power in relation to royal authority. On 17 January 1790 he had been elected Pierry’s first mayor. That March he drafted, but apparently never sent, a letter to his cousin in Paris: ‘France, my friend, is no longer military, and if the Baron de Besenval, still the titular commander of Champagne, were to come to Pierry with his army, I, as mayor, would be obliged to make him realise his insignificance in asserting my superior right.’⁵⁴ Besenval, nominally commander of French forces in Champagne (and elsewhere), was then in prison, but was a customer for Cazotte’s wines. Cazotte’s point was that he would assert the civil power over the military against whomsoever. It was as if he had not forgotten the dispute he had had in Martinique nearly forty years previously.

Cazotte’s distrust of military power faded as the course of the Revolution became more radical. On 24 July 1791 he would write to Pouteau that ‘[the people’s] complaints were in the end just; I want all wrongs to be redressed; I want them to enjoy a liberty that it cannot abuse’ and that he was against the aristocrats and foreign military intervention.⁵⁵ However, after the acceptance by Louis XVI in September 1791 of the 1791 Constitution, which limited royal power to a suspensive veto, Cazotte contemplated foreign intervention: ‘Unfortunately we’ll not be delivered of this odious vermin [i.e. the Jacobins] save with the smoke of cannon’ (1 October 1791).⁵⁶ In letters of the following months he expressed concern over the bloodshed that would ensue from foreign intervention and hoped that its threat alone might be enough to bring Paris to heel.⁵⁷ Mixing politics with mysticism, he remained optimistic, continually predicting the fall of the Jacobins, and that Good in the form of the king would triumph, writing: ‘The heavenly guard which surrounds [persons of royalty] is the same which surrounded the kings of Israel who walked in the way of the Lord.’⁵⁸ By June 1792, however, perhaps in response to the invasion on 20 June of the Tuileries palace by the Parisian crowd, he had lost patience: ‘Louis XVI must take care against one of his tendencies, namely mercy. The kingdom, defiled by so many crimes, cannot be cleansed except by the blood of criminals.’⁵⁹

After discovery of his letters to Pouteau, Cazotte was arrested on 18 August 1792 at Pierry on the orders of the Comité de surveillance de l’Assemblée Nationale, accused of fostering counter‐revolution, and imprisoned in Paris. His daughter, Elisabeth, followed him to Paris and was herself interrogated but not prosecuted. She stayed with her father in the prison of La Force, albeit in a separate room, until 2 September.⁶⁰ Some seven years after the event, she wrote a colourful account of how she procured his release the following day: With much difficulty I got permission to wait for my father in front of the door past which he had to go; I protected him with my body and told them that they would not make an attempt on his life without first piercing my breast; I waited for them, these cannibals. And when they saw the tears I shed, they were reassuring and promised me protection. That lasted more than two hours. I was obliged to drink with them from a glass stained with human blood. They had us appear before their tribunals of blood and there they all embraced me and had us leave in triumph all the way home in a carriage in which we had to stop at every step of the way. Some men from Marseilles who were in the coach, and one of whom I had the advantage of having on my knees, shouted at the top of their voices: ‘Look, look, an old man of ninety with his daughter whom the aristocrats had put in chains.’ And the whole world passing by kissed us as if we were two Eucharist plates. My poor mother, who had got to Paris before us … thought when she saw all these people bringing us back, that it was her last moment. What was her joy once more to see these treasured objects!⁶¹ Cazotte’s liberty was short‐lived. He was rearrested on 13 September and tried on the 24th. After admitting that his letters contained plans for counter‐revolution and that he wanted them known by those in a position to profit from them, he was found guilty and sentenced to death. He wrote to his family: ‘My wife, my children, do not cry for me, do not forget me, but remember never to offend God.’⁶² On 25 September he was taken by cart to the place du Carrousel for execution. He read from the Prophets, and on the scaffold died with courage, shouting to the crowd: ‘I die as I have lived, faithful to God and to my king.’⁶³

Aftermath

Elisabeth’s courageous intervention, which inspired more than one artist,⁶⁴ had been all the more tragic for being ultimately futile. When the news reached London at the end of September, the painter Danloux recorded these words about Cazotte in his journal: ‘… he died with a courageous sang‐froid which astonished his executioners. They were reduced to saying that he was worthy of dying for a more noble cause!’⁶⁵

Although Elisabeth, who had acted as her father’s secretary, escaped prosecution, neither she nor her family escaped the consequences of the confiscation of all of Cazotte’s property. Her two brothers emigrated, Simon‐Henri in January 1792 and Jacques‐Scévole, who had served as a lieutenant in the Kings’ Constitutional Guard until its abolition in 1792, in January 1793.⁶⁶ Cazotte’s widow and daughter remained in France but were destitute. In November 1800, eight years after Cazotte’s execution, his widow was writing to the prefect of La Marne that she owed rent both for the apartment she and her daughter occupied and for the one they had left. Then the following February, Elisabeth, who had married her émigré fiancé, François‐Barnabé de Plas the previous year, on his return to France, died in childbirth. Nor did the baby survive.⁶⁷

Cazotte’s Picture Collection

In an earlier letter to the prefect of La Marne, Cazotte’s widow sought restitution of his library and collection of paintings.⁶⁸ Cazotte had himself been an amateur painter. When troubled by the possibility that Louis XVI might agree to the 1791 Constitution, he wrote to Pouteau: ‘… I run to my brushes to gain a distraction to give me time to rest my heart and my head.’⁶⁹ No surviving painting by him has been identified. He was also a collector of paintings, and at Pierry had a cabinet de tableaux facing south onto the garden.⁷⁰ In a letter to Pouteau he wrote: … I preach woe in a study full of masterpieces of Lesueur, Poussin, Titian, etc. A naturally pretty good painter myself, a collector since childhood, born into a family of collectors, I’ve formed a collection of eighty original paintings of all schools and it’s in the midst of this luxury that I shout famine, without being able to help myself in any way.⁷¹ When a local painter, Leblanc, was commissioned to make a list of Cazotte’s paintings in January 1794, he counted 104 paintings and 12 engravings at the house at Pierry (not counting the 12 belonging to the marquise de La Croix).⁷² These were distributed as follows: in the dining room, 11 engravings and 14 paintings; in the corridor, 2 paintings; in the salon, 18 paintings; in the large antechamber, 21 paintings; in the cabinet de tableaux, 46 paintings, 1 engraving and 3 small pictures. A few days later Leblanc made another list of those pictures that he regarded as ‘tableaux de mérite’. This comprised 2 drawings, 11 engravings and 62 paintings. Although Leblanc noted the (approximate) subjects of the paintings, he did not detail their disposition or their authors, actual or supposed, and, as he had culled his original list, it is not possible to be certain how many of the 46 paintings in the cabinet de tableaux, for example, remained on the second list. However, one may suppose, for example, that, both by virtue of their subject matter and their proximity in the list to the 11 engravings mentioned in the first list as in the dining room, the paintings hanging there included the following (as numbered and transcribed by Beuve): 55. Le Benedicite; 60. Groupe [Grappe] de raisins; 72. Un grand tableau représentant un déjeuner et divers objets; 73. Un dessus de porte représentant un déjeuner. All of the paintings were removed to the Musée départemental, and when that institution closed in 1807 they were split between the town hall of Châlons, its college, and certain churches. This was the situation in 1816, when Jacques‐Scévole listed the pictures the restitution of which he was seeking. Again, however, the list identified the pictures only by subject and not by author.

It was only in March 1817, after the municipality of Châlons had declined the opportunity to buy the pictures from Jacques‐Scévole, that a list of 61 paintings was made, with their subjects, authors and sizes.⁷³ In January 1818 Jacques‐Scévole acknowledged receipt of the paintings. With the exception of the paintings that remained at Châlons‐en‐Champagne and are now in the Musée municipal, the fate of the Cazotte’s collection at Pierry after its restitution is unknown. Probably it was sold. The paintings now in the Musée municipal are, in addition to the copy of the portrait of Cazotte by Perronneau (see Related Works (1)) and that said to be of his wife (on which see note 36), as follows:⁷⁴ Although it is likely that some of the attributions in the 1817 list would now be changed, the general shape of Cazotte’s collection, part of which may have been inherited, can be deduced.⁷⁶ Of the 61 paintings in the 1817 list, three were of Old Testament subjects and 23 were of New Testament or other Christian subjects; there were 12 mythologies, including two bacchanals and one allegory of Wisdom; three paintings of ancient history; nine genre paintings; four landscapes; one architectural scene; and four still lifes. The remainder were insufficiently described to allow for categorisation, and two paintings were of mixed categories, namely ‘Paul Bril, paysage; sujet: Jésus tenté par le diable ermite’, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

• (1) French School, sixteenth century, Saint Jerome in Prayer, oil on panel, 67 × 65 cm, inv.794.1.6;
• (2) Antoine Coypel, Jesus served by Angels (fig. 4);
• (3) French school, eighteenth century, Landscape with a Castle and a Mill, oil on canvas, 32.5 × 40.5 cm, inv. 794.1.8;
• (4) French school, eighteenth century, Classical Landscape, oil on canvas, 31 × 41 cm, inv. 794.1.9;
• (5) Peter van Bredael, A Fair in Italy, oil on canvas, 160 × 240 cm, inv. 794.1 5;
• (6) Joos de Momper, Winter Landscape;
• (7) Italian school, sixteenth century, The Virgin and Christ Child, oil on canvas, 63 × 48 cm, inv. 794.1 7.⁷⁵

Although it is likely that some of the attributions in the 1817 list would now be changed, the general shape of Cazotte’s collection, part of which may have been inherited, can be deduced.⁷⁶ Of the 61 paintings in the 1817 list, three were of Old Testament subjects and 23 were of New Testament or other Christian subjects; there were 12 mythologies, including two bacchanals and one allegory of Wisdom; three paintings of ancient history; nine genre paintings; four landscapes; one architectural scene; and four still lifes. The remainder were insufficiently described to allow for categorisation, and two paintings were of mixed categories, namely ‘Paul Bril, paysage; sujet: Jésus tenté par le diable ermite’, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

⁷⁶ Of the 61 paintings in the 1817 list, three were of Old Testament subjects and 23 were of New Testament or other Christian subjects; there were 12 mythologies, including two bacchanals and one allegory of Wisdom; three paintings of ancient history; nine genre paintings; four landscapes; one architectural scene; and four still lifes. The remainder were insufficiently described to allow for categorisation, and two paintings were of mixed categories, namely ‘Paul Bril, paysage; sujet: Jésus tenté par le diable ermite’, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

Of the 61 paintings in the 1817 list, three were of Old Testament subjects and 23 were of New Testament or other Christian subjects; there were 12 mythologies, including two bacchanals and one allegory of Wisdom; three paintings of ancient history; nine genre paintings; four landscapes; one architectural scene; and four still lifes. The remainder were insufficiently described to allow for categorisation, and two paintings were of mixed categories, namely ‘Paul Bril, paysage; sujet: Jésus tenté par le diable ermite’, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

‘Paul Bril, paysage; sujet: Jésus tenté par le diable ermite’, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

, here included among the New Testament subjects, and ‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

‘Un paysage, orné de figures; sujet: Flore et Zéphire’, here included among the mythologies.

, here included among the mythologies.

Dividing the paintings by the various schools, 16 were Italian; seven Dutch or Flemish; four Spanish (assuming that two of those described as ‘sujets espagnols’ were by Spanish painters rather than paintings of supposed Spanish subjects by French painters); and 21 French.⁷⁷ The remainder were insufficiently described to permit categorisation.

Finally, how many of the paintings in Cazotte’s collection were by his contemporaries? Assuming that he did not start to collect before 1760, the year he inherited wealth from his brother, the painters then alive represented in his collection were, according to the list of paintings, Chardin, Doyen and Natoire. Chardin was represented by four paintings, all on canvas and respectively described as: ‘Sujet de scène familière [hauteur] 2 p. 6 p. [largeur] 2 p.’;⁷⁸ ‘Un enfant jouant avec un oiseau [hauteur] 1 p. 3 p. [largeur] 1 p.’;⁷⁹ ‘Deux tableaux de nature morte [hauteur] 3 p. 6 p. [largeur] 4 p.’⁸⁰ The pictures by Doyen were two landscapes on canvas: ‘une vue du Vésuve et une belle matinée [hauteur] 3 p. 11 p. [largeur] 3 p. 3 p.’⁸¹ The only Natoire was a Judgement of Paris on canvas, ‘[hauteur] 5 p. 2 p. [largeur] 3 p. 8 p.’⁸² None of these paintings, other than those listed above now in the Musée municipal, Châlons‐en‐Champagne, can now be identified.⁸³

The Portrait

As the late Sir Michael Levey wrote of NG 6435, ‘[it] shows Perronneau’s outstanding grasp of physiognomy and reveals him no less a master than his more famous contemporary, La Tour’.⁸⁴ Soon after its acquisition by the Gallery a commentator in the Burlington Magazine wrote that the handling of the pink suit reveals a relaxed mastery comparable with Gainsborough at his best, while the liveliness of expression, at once witty and teasing, and the easy naturalism of the pose, make the portrait a perfect mid‐century complement to the colder and more rhetorical Rigaud [Portrait of Antoine Paris] purchased last year. Jacques Cazotte has been hung next to the Perronneau Girl with a Kitten and is so markedly superior in technique as to raise the old doubts about the pastel’s authenticity.⁸⁵ Cazotte wears an expression that is as amused as it is relaxed. In contrast, for example, to Henry Dawkins, who in his portrait by La Tour (NG 5118) inserts his forearm firmly into his waistcoat at a perfectly horizontal angle, Cazotte lets his forearm fall into his waistcoat. This and his coat are of salmon‐pink silk lined with white, a costume that may not have been the sitter’s, but which Perronneau may have asked him to wear.⁸⁶ The Flemish lace of his shirt frill is thrown into prominence by the black silk ribbon, called a solitaire, which was tied round the wig at the back with the ends being brought round to the front, as here, and pinned under a lace cravat. The lace of his ruffled cuff matches that of the shirt‐frill. His wig is of a style known as à la mousquetaire,⁸⁷ having a single curving roll at the side with hair at the back gathered into a black silk bag,⁸⁸ and is similar to that worn, for example, by the sitter in Greuze’s Jean‐Georges Wille of 1763. On this basis, one might suppose that NG 6435 could be dated to some date after Cazotte’s return to France in October 1759.⁸⁹

Cazotte’s marriage in 1761 might have been a catalyst for the portrait, but Perronneau was most likely away from France during most of that year and all of the following. Consequently 1763, when Cazotte enjoyed immediate success with his prose poem, Ollivier, or 1764, would be possible dates for NG 6435; by then he would not have lacked the means to commission a portrait. The only other possible date, given the respective peregrinations of artist and sitter, is 1753, when Perronneau was received as an Academician.⁹⁰ It is this date that seems more likely. It is more consistent [page 379]with the apparent age of the sitter, then 34. The style of wig is as comparable with that in Presumed portrait of Jérôme de Chassaing, seigneur de Beauséjour of 1756 (fig. 5),⁹¹ as it is with Greuze’s portrait of Wille of 1763, and the angle of the sitter to the picture plane is similar to that of Jean‐Baptiste Oudry, one of the portraits presented by Perronneau for his reception into the Académie in 1753.⁹² During the reign of Louis XV relatively few dated hand‐in‐waistcoat portraits of French sitters are dated after 1758 compared to the preceding ten years.⁹³ Perhaps most crucially, in a letter to his wife, undated but probably of the 1780s to judge from its content, Cazotte referred to ‘mon mauvais portrait copié qui avait coûté 4 Louis à l’abbé Cazotte’.⁹⁴ This was almost certainly a reference to the copy of NG 6435 now in the museum at Châlons‐en‐Champagne (Related Works (1)). Since Jacques Cazotte’s elder brother, the abbé Cazotte, died in 1760, if the cited phrase was intended to refer to a poor copy of NG 6435, NG 6435 must have been painted, or at least started, in 1753, rather than 1763–4.⁹⁵

General References

Florisoone 1948, p. 78, pl. 112 (as in the collection of Mme Meyer Sassoon, London); The National Gallery 1978, p. 31; Wilson 1985, p. 106; Humphrey Wine, ‘Le portrait de Jacques Cazotte par Jean‐Baptiste Perronneau et sa collection des tableaux’, in Gevrey and Haquette 2010, pp. 51–64 (where dated 1763–4); Arnoult 2014, no. 124 P, and pp. 62, 76, 88, 114, 135, 188, 251, 252 and 358.

Notes