1 The letters and figures ‘fini en mai 1764’ have been strengthened and painted over an earlier, now illegible inscription. (Back to text.)

2 This room, which was the central room of the building’s main block on the first floor, had two windows facing the garden and two facing the courtyard. Among its principal elements were a mantelpiece with severely squared mouldings of green Egyptian marble and a set of mahogany tables that could be combined to seat 24 guests, seated on chairs painted white and upholstered with crimson and white silk damasks cushions. Opposite the fireplace and its large mirror surrounds was a double console table with a contoured top, all of Languedoc marble, which stood on a socle and hearthstone of white veined marble. NG 6440 was hung above this table and was thus reflected in the fireplace mirror opposite. Its display was therefore more prominent than Roslin’s full‐length portrait of Marigny, which hung between the windows overlooking the garden. The inventory entry for the picture, made on 25 July 1781, describes it as ‘La meme Dame [Madame de Pomapdour] mise devant un metier en Tapisserie peint par Drouais’. NG 6440 was in a sculpted gilt‐wood frame. As was customary with family portraits, no value was ascribed to it. On the location of NG 6440 at the hôtel de Menars, see Gordon 2003a, pp. 97–8, 317. NG 6440 was presumably inherited by a member of the Poisson de Malvoisin branch of Marigny’s family: on this see ibid. , p. 17. Further information on Madame de Pompadour’s possessions at her death is contained or referenced in Gordon 2006. (Back to text.)

3 There described as: ‘Un grand Tableau, portrait de madame de Pompadour; par Drouays le fils.’ Dulac was a publisher of, and dealer in, prints, according to Répertoire des tableaux 1998, p. 1403. Too many female sitters have been wrongly identified as Madame de Pompadour for the painting in the 1801 sale to merit certainly being identified as NG 6440. However, the marquis de La Grange, in whose posthumous sale of 1808 this painting probably was, collected most of his pictures during the period 1800–6, and the same expert, Alexandre‐Joseph Paillet, acted in both the 1801 and 1808 sales. This and the more specific description of the painting in the 1808 sale permits the use of the qualifier ‘probably’ rather than ‘possibly’, in respect of both sales. (Back to text.)

4 There described as: ‘Drouais le fils. Un grand Tableau. Portrait de Madame de Pompadour représentée de proportion naturelle dans un Appartement, et assise devant un Métier à broder.’ According to Répertoire des tableaux 1998, p. 1422, La Grange had been Lieutenant Général des Armées du Roi. (Back to text.)

5 There described as: ‘Mme de Pompadour. Portrait en pied et de grandeur naturelle. Mme de Pompadour est assise, brodant au métier. Sa robe de soie est éclatante de grands ramages sur fond blanc, derrière elle un rideau magnifique, une bibliothèque dorée, des livres et des cartons à dessin. Signé Henri Drouais, avec cette description: “La tête a été peint en 1763 et le tableau fini en 1764.” C’est le portrait qui ornait à Versailles le bureau de Louis XV.’ I am grateful to Gosem Dullaart for sending me a transcription from the catalogue in the RKD . The lot immediately following, also by Drouais, was described as: ‘Mme de Pompadour. Autre portrait en buste et de forme ovale. L’ajustement est le même que dans le grand portrait précédent. Elle porte un manchon d’hermine.’ See also Goncourt 1901, p. 428: ‘Nous l’avons [apparently describing NG 6440] vu vendre en 1845, à la vente de M. de Cypierre, ce portrait où, à côté de la signature de Drouais, on pouvait lire l’inscription suivante: La tête a été peinte en 1763, et le tableau fini en 1764.’ In spite of the differences between the inscription on NG 6440 and that recorded by the Goncourts, it seems more likely that they inaccurately recorded the inscription than that they saw a life‐size replica. According to Thoré 1845 (10 March 1845), cited by Blumenfield Blumenfeld 2007, p. 88, who was close to Cypierre, the Cypierre painting was bought back by the Drouais family during the Revolution. The Beurdeley who bought the picture in 1845 was most likely the Parisian furniture maker and picture dealer Louis‐Auguste‐Alfred Beurdeley. Lot 19 of one of his sales, namely that of 18 December 1855, was described as ‘Drouais. Dame de qualité’, a description that would be hardly adequate to describe NG 6440. The Leedham stamp on the back of the stretcher (see Technical Notes) indicates that NG 6440 was in Great Britain by 1857, so it is possible that John Webb, who was also a furniture maker and dealer and who is known to have visited Paris, bought the picture from Beurdeley some date before then. (Back to text.)

6 The catalogue entry for lot 65, Sotheby’s, London, 5 July 2006, wrongly states that Etienne‐Edmond Martin, baron de Beurnonville was once the owner of NG 6440. There was included in the Beurnonville sale, Chevallier, Paris, 21–22 May 1883, lot 12, a painting signed and dated 1760 by François‐Hubert Drouais there described as ‘Portrait presumé de la marquise de Pompadour’. However, as is apparent from the accompanying engraved illustration, the painting was not NG 6440, nor was the sitter Madame de Pompadour. (Back to text.)

7 For Mentmore Towers, built in 1852–4 by Sir Joseph Paxton and his son‐in‐law George Henry Stokes in the style of the Jacobean house Wollaton Hall, Nottinghamshire, see A Handbook for Travellers 1872, pp. 155–6; Pevsner 1960, p. 206; and a more detailed account in The Builder, 19 December 1857. Writing on 29 April 1857 to Anne, Lady Londonderry, Benjamin Disraeli, who later became Prime Minister, called Mentmore ‘this gorgeous palace’ and enthused over the contents: ‘Such chairs – Titian alone could paint them, such clocks of lapis lazuli, such cabinets of all forms and colours, such marble busts of turbaned Moors, such a staircase of polished marble from this vast central saloon … glittering with its precious contents, and yet the most comfortable and liveable‐in in the world…’ (Monypenny and Buckle 1929, vol. 1, p. 1477). The author Henry James wrote of Mentmore’s contents that ‘[all] of them are precious and many are exquisite, and their general Rothschildish splendour is only equalled by their profusion’ (letter of 28 November, 1880 in Lubbock 1920, vol. 1, p. 76). Only the Conservative MP Sir Henry ‘Chips’ Channon noted briefly the paintings at Mentmore in a diary entry for 11 February 1951: ‘It must be twenty years since I stayed here and I had forgotten what glorious meubles and pictures they have. There are twelve Fragonards in my bedroom, small ones, but Fragonards, and all over the large cold, icy palace are French pictures of the very finest quality; more and better too than the ones at Boughton. A pair of cupboards, not yet removed, they have just sold for £15,000. There is a pathetic Sèvres model of “Papillon”, Marie‐Antoinette’s favourite dog … several Rembrandts, and two pictures of Madame de Pompadour. I have never seen such richesse … I am, I fear, sick with envy’ (Rhodes James 1986, p. 435). Only one portrait of Madame de Pompadour is recorded in Mentmore 1883, the privately printed catalogue of the house’s contents, namely NG 6440 at pp. xvii–viii. This is listed as no. 20 and as in the billiard room, which according to a note was originally built as a conservatory. According to a photograph taken around 1870 and reproduced on p. xiii of Watson 1977, NG 6440 was not then in the billiard room, which was at that time hung with tapestries and used as its name suggests. During the Second World War Mentmore also housed, among other objects belonging to the nation, the portraits from the National Portrait Gallery, as well as its director, Sir Henry Hake, and his wife: The Times, 1 September 1945, p. 5, and 5 April 1951, p. 6. (Back to text.)

8 Photograph in Bidwell c. 1996, p. 6. It is not possible to identify from the photograph the paintings hanging on either side of NG 6440. The photograph is also reproduced in the pamphlet Save Mentmore 1977, in which John Martin Robinson refers to NG 6440 as ‘the star of the French pictures’ at Mentmore (p. 13). (Back to text.)

9 Prior to the purchase by the National Gallery an acceptance in lieu of estate duty had been mooted but was in the end not proceeded with, the Gallery and HM Treasury each blaming the other: The Times, 8 September 1977, p. 2, and 13 September 1977, p. 16. For Denis Mahon’s trenchant criticism of HM Treasury, see his letter in ibid. , 14 September 1977, p. 17, in which he called NG 6440 ‘an unquestionably self‐evident candidate for acceptance in lieu of tax’, and for that of Keith Roberts, see Roberts 1977, p. 515 in which he referred to the Treasury’s ‘mixture of philistinism and mean‐minded calculation’. According to a report by Geraldine Norman shortly before the auction sale, ‘It is believed that [NG 6440] was originally offered to the nation with a valuation of about £300,000, but then Lord Rosebery withdrew the offer, considering the financial sacrifice too great. A price of £600,000 was being talked of yesterday. Mr. Michael Levey, Director of the National Gallery, commented that he would welcome discussion of any valuation of Lord Rosebery’s choosing, “if he is prepared to tell us his valuation, we are prepared to discuss the possibilities.”’ The Times, 10 May 1977, p. 1. On this episode see also the comments of the Gallery’s then Chairman, Sir John Hale, as reported in The Guardian (27 May 1977) when NG 6440 was unveiled following its acquisition. Apart from NG 6440, the question as to whether the nation should accept Mentmore and its contents as a whole in lieu of estate duties caused considerable controversy during 1977 (see, for example, the leader article and letters published in The Times on 7 February 1977, p. 15). (Back to text.)

10 25 Park Lane, London, was the house of Sir Philip Sassoon. The exhibition that took place from 21 February to 5 April 1933 was organised by Sir Philip Sassoon and his cousin, Mrs David Gubbay, in aid of the Royal Northern Hospital (The Times, 20 February 1933, p. 7, said that NG 6440 was among the ‘works to be greeted with cheers’). (Back to text.)

11 According to a letter of 18 April 1915 from A. Brémond to Sir George Compton Arthur (then private secretary to Lord Kitchener) on the dossier of the Royal Collection Trust’s painting. [page 197]I am grateful to Katherine Barron for sending me a copy of this letter. I am not aware of any other source corroborating Brémond’s account. (Back to text.)

12 But regarded as an autograph replica by Luna 1978, p. 279. (Back to text.)

13 See Garnier‐Pelle 2009a, p. 218, and Garnier‐Pelle 2009b, p. 101. The dress is a silver‐grey adorned with pink bows, and Madame de Pompadour is seated on a chair rather than a canapé. Former owners were Alexandre Lenoir and the 3rd Duke of Sutherland. For their ownership see Gower 1874, no. 134, and ‘The Lenoir Collection of Portraits’, The Times, 2 December 1874, p. 4. Gower’s volume incorporated lithograph illustrations of the portraits in the collection, a head and shoulders only in the case of the portrait of Madame de Pompadour. The duc d’Aumale acquired the painting in 1876. (Back to text.)

14 I am grateful to Pierre Etienne for allowing me to inspect this painting. (Back to text.)

15 Mills and White 1978, with notes incorporating some results on the staining of cross‐sections by Jo Kirby and Ashok Roy. (Back to text.)

16 Quéro 2005. (Back to text.)

17 A pastel portrait of Alexandrine by François Boucher recorded in the posthumous inventory of Madame de Pompadour (Cordey 1939, no. 1252), now in a private collection, was sold at Sotheby’s, Paris, 25 June 2008, lot 66. An oil painting probably derived from this, signed and dated 1749, was first recorded when exhibited in 1932. There is an enamel miniature by Louis‐François Aubert dated 1751, which also probably derives from it, in the Musée Lambinet, Versailles (see Exhibitions, Versailles, Munich and London 2002–3, no. 32), and a drawing and a painting by François Guérin of Madame de Pompadour and her daughter that incorporates a variant of these images (E.B. Crocker Museum, Sacramento, and a Rothschild collection: Versailles and Munich 2002, no. 33). For the circumstances of Alexandrine’s death and the marquise de Graffigny’s consequent sympathy for Madame de Pompadour, see La Correspondance de Madame de Graffigny (Arthur and Smith 1985–2016, vol. 14 [2013], pp. 150, 151, note 15). Françoise de Graffigny died in 1758 so her correspondence does not extend to the time when NG 6440 was painted. (Back to text.)

18 The most sound recent English language biographies of Pompadour are Algrant 2002, Lever 2003. See also Levron 1961, Nicolle 1980 and Gallet 1985. However, as Alden Gordon has shown, the Journal de Madame du Hausset, to which most Pompadour biographies are indebted, is a fraud (Gordon 2001). The same author usefully reviewed the then recent Pompadour literature in Gordon 2003b. On Madame de Pompadour’s art patronage the fundamental text is Salmon 2002, which contains a good bibliography as well as studies by various authors on aspects of her collecting and display strategies, and catalogue entries on numerous of the items in her collection. See also Gordon 2003a, 2006 and 2008. (Back to text.)

19 According to one nineteenth‐century account, ‘She was possessed of greater power in Europe than any woman of modern times, with the exception, perhaps of Elizabeth of England, and Catherine of Russia’. Only slightly less exaggerated was the same author’s assertion that ‘In matters of [taste] she was accepted as the sole arbitress, for no porcelain vase, no sedan chair, no pen, no slipper, nothing noticeable in dress or furniture comes down from those days without speaking of the Pompadour’: ‘Madame de Pompadour’ 1869, pp. 344, 345. (Back to text.)

20 As is evident from the books shown in Maurice‐Quentin de La Tour’s pastel portrait of her in the Louvre (Département des Arts graphiques, inv. 27614 recto). For a recent assessment of the extent of her support for Enlightenment thinkers, see Hourcade 2004a. On 21 May 1764, soon after her death, Voltaire wrote to Marmontel: ‘[les gens de letters] … ont fait sans doute une grande perte dans mad^e de Pompadour. Nous ne pouvons lui reprocher que d’avoir protégé Catalina et le Triumvirat [tragedies by Crébillon père]; elle était philosophe. Si elle avait vécu elle aurait fait autant de bien que mad^e de Maintenon a fait de mal.’ Marmontel 1974 edn, vol. 1, p. 92. (Back to text.)

21 For a note of, or reference to, the copies, see Salmon 2002, no. 35 (entry by Humphrey Wine). For members of the Pompadour network at Court who might have been expected to be recipients of a portrait of Madame de Pompadour, see Rogister 2004. (Back to text.)

22 Bergeon and Martin 1994, pp. 67, 73, note 12, and figs 3 and 4, p. 68. (Back to text.)

23 Salmon 2002, no. 35, and see Gordon 2008, no. 20 (entry by Isabelle Klinka‐Ballesteros). Alden Gordon has suggested (email of 27 May 2009) that the head in NG 6440 might itself be a replica of a life study made on a small portable canvas, but he presupposed that the study did not become, as it did here, an integral part of the final picture. (Back to text.)

24 For a brief contemporary account of the firework celebrations and their interruption by bad weather, see ‘Faits historiques 1762 à 1763’, INHA , Paris, MS 4, fols 605–22, passim, and microfilm de substitution: mf Ms IX, fo. 614. The entry for 24 June, 1763 reads: ‘l’illumination de l’Hôtel de Pompadour a eut la plus brill[ante] execution, il n’est question que de son elegance et que de son magi[que] effet. On ne peut rien ajouter à celui qu’il a produit…’ (fol. 614). (Back to text.)

25 I am grateful to P.M. Fairweather for information on this painting, which was exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts, France in the Eighteenth Century, 1968, no. 209. (Back to text.)

26 She was present at the marriage on 4 April 1763 of Luc Vincent Thierry [sic] and Marguerite‐Joseph Godefroid, and witnessed the marriage contract on 13 April at the hôtel de Pompadour in Paris: AN , M.C. XXIV, 784, cited in Marandet 2003, pp. 38 and 41, note 66. Thierry, described as ‘employé dans les vives de Flandres et d’Allemagne’, was the Luc‐Vincent Thiéry who later wrote Guide des amateurs et des étrangers voyageurs à Paris: ou description raisonnée de cette ville, de sa banlieue, & de tout ce qu’elles contiennent de remarquable, Paris 1787. The bride was the daughter of the royal paintings’ restorer known as Veuve Godefroid. (Back to text.)

27 ‘personne comme elle [i.e. Madame de Pompadour] ne savait traiter chacun comme il convenait, avec une aisance qui confondait tout les rangs. Pour éviter toute etiquette, elle recevait à sa toilette’, Dufort de Cheverny 1886, vol. 1, p. 69 (these memoirs were written in 1795). (Back to text.)

28 ‘Elle retrancha sa toilette publique et, le mardi suivant, elle reçut des ambassadeurs à son métier de tapisserie. Ainsi, on passa de la toilette au métier….’, Grouchy and Cottin 1906–7, vol. 1, pp. 335–6. (Back to text.)

29 Seufert 1998, p. 55, note 34. (Back to text.)

30 Bremer‐David 2011, no. 100b, ill. p. 23, fig. 12. (Back to text.)

31 Oil on canvas, 99.06 × 80.33 cm., signed and dated centre left above the chair: ‘Drouais 1767’. I am grateful to Alain Joyaux for additional information about the physical state of this painting, which shows that it is unlikely to have been cut down, and for providing photographs of it. (Back to text.)

32 See Leclair 2001, no. P.52. (Back to text.)

33 As I suggested at a conference on the Livre de caricatures held at St Anne’s College, Oxford, 17–19 July 2009, and since then in Humphrey Wine, ‘Madame de Pompadour’, in Jones, Carey and Richardson 2012, pp. 179–90 at p. 187 and fig. 12.1, p. 262, a feature that identifies the woman in the drawing as Madame de Pompadour is the sculpted amour which, save for the position of the arms, is close to a marble Amour sculpted by Jacques‐François‐Joseph Saly for her chateau at Bellevue in 1753. On Saly’s sculpture, see Salmon 2002, no. 136 (entry by Bent Sørensen). (Back to text.)

34 On the detail and chronology of the peace negotiations, see Rashid 1951, passim. (Back to text.)

35 Dziembowski 2008. (Back to text.)

36 On the relationship between the duc de Choiseul and the marquise de Pompadour, see, for example, Rogister 2004, pp. 176–7. On Madame de Pompadour’s awareness of the need to ‘ménager’ public opinion, see Humphrey Wine, ‘Afficher une image: madame de Pompadour au Salon’ in Salmon 2002, pp. 17–25 at p. 17. (Back to text.)

37 Dziembowski 1998, pp. 426–30; Dziembowski 2015, p. 463. (Back to text.)

38 Humphrey Wine in Salmon 2002, and see Dziembowski 2015, p. 46, citing a letter written by Bernis to Stainville on 6 June, 1758: ‘On me menace par des lettres anonymes d’être bientôt déchiré par le peuple, et quoique je ne craigne guère de pareilles menaces, il est certain que les malheurs prochains qu’on peut prévoir pourraient aisément réaliser ces menaces. Notre amie [i.e. Madame de Pompadour] court pour le moins autant de risques … J’ai vu une conjuration sourde se former dans tous les ordres de l’Etat contre la nouvelle [Franco‐Austrian] alliance et contre ses auteurs.’ (Back to text.)

39 See note 24. (Back to text.)

40 The phrases are those of Goodman 2000, pp. 28 and 30. (Back to text.)

41 The installation of the statue, at which Madame de Pompadour was present, took place on 23 February 1763. On the reaction of sections of the crowd, see Barbier 1847–56, vol. 4, p. 447. The statue’s inauguration occurred on 20 June 1763. Again the crowd reaction was muted, if not hostile: ibid. , pp. 458–9, and Dziembowski 1998, p. 472. (Back to text.)

42 That the marquise’s health was by then giving cause for alarm is clear from a letter written by the duchesse de Choiseul to madame du Deffand in December 1763: Correspondance complète de Mme du Deffand 1867, vol. 1, p. 15. According to madame du Deffand the marquise was very ill again in March 1764: Craveri 2002, p. 240. See also Salmon 2002, no. 41 (Carle Vanloo’s Les Arts suppliants demandent au Destin d’épargner le vie de madame de Pompadour, entry by X. Salmon). (Back to text.)

43 Conceivably the work table was not finished before the marquise became gravely ill, or indeed had died, and it was therefore never delivered to her. That would be consistent with its absence from her posthumous inventory. (Back to text.)

44 See Engerand 1900, pp. 167–9, and Hoff 1995, p. 88. Drouais was evidently continuing with other private commissions, since an oval portrait of the 10‐year‐old Lady Amelia d’Arcy is inscribed: ‘peint a paris par Drouais en avril 1764’ (oil on canvas, oval, 71 × 58.5 cm, Woolley & Wallis, Salisbury, 4 December 2013, lot 148). (Back to text.)

45 See Salmon 2002, p. 162, where I identified the dog as Mimi. While the dog in NG 6440 is indeed a King Charles spaniel, it does not appear to be Mimi as portrayed in a portrait print by Etienne Fessard after Christophe Huet made in 1758: see Salmon 2002, no. 64. Alastair Laing has kindly pointed out that the dog in NG 6440 might be the same as that portrayed by Jean‐Jacques Bachelier in 1759 in a painting in a Paris private collection, and which, according to a label affixed to the frame (but without other supporting evidence), has been identified as Milady: Mouradian, Préaud 1999, no. 69 (entry by Hélène Mouradian). (Back to text.)

46 Letter of 20 March 1989 from Lydia Skinner. (Back to text.)

47 Groves 1966, p. 97. (Back to text.)

48 Encyclopédie 1751–72, vol. 15 (1765), p. 876. In his L’Art du brodeur (1770) Charles‐Germain de Saint‐Aubin describes and illustrates two types of tambour frame, one held on the knees (tambour à genoux), as shown in the book of drawings, mainly by Charles‐Germain, called Livre de caricatures tant bonnes que mauvaises (Waddesdon Manor, Buckinghamshire), and the other on a mobile stand (tambour à pied): Saint‐Aubin 1770, pp. 27, 38 and 41, and plate 1, figs 7 and 8. (Back to text.)

49 Groves 1966, p. 99. (Back to text.)

50 Cordey 1939, no. 130. Four métiers de tapisserie non complets were recorded at Versailles ( ibid. , no. 529); also recorded at Versailles were: ‘549. Un metier en tambour pour tapisserie de bois de violette et palissandre dans son etuy de bois de noyer, fermant à clef. Prisé cent livres…/ 550. Deux métiers propre à faire de la tapisserie, garnis de leurs tablettes montés en cuivre doré d’or moulu. Prisé cent vingt livres…/ 551. Un autre métier propre à tapisserie, aussy de bois satiné de raport, monté en cuivre doré d’or moulu. Prisé soixante quinze livres…/ 552. Quatre autres métiers, aussy à tapisserie, montés en cuivre doré d’or moulu et fer, et un autre, plus petit, monté en fer et cuivre. Prisé ensemble soixante livres…’. References in this catalogue entry to Madame de Pompadour’s posthumous inventory are as published by Cordey, which, however, does not transcribe the manuscript inventory in full: Alden R. Gordon, ‘L’influence du marquis de Marigny sur madame de Pompadour’, in Salmon 2002, pp. 51–63 at p. 59. (Back to text.)

51 For the tambour needles recorded at the hôtel de Pompadour in Paris, see Cordey 1939, nos 2475–81. That recorded as no. 2477 was of gold alone and valued at 24 livres. Of the others the most expensive was made of rock crystal with three diamonds ( ibid. , no. 2475, valued at 28 livres); one was amber ‘garny d’or’ ( ibid. , no. 2476, valued at 9 livres); one was ivory ‘garny d’or’ ( ibid. , no. 2479, valued at 18 livres); and the remainder were tortoiseshell with gold ferrules ( ibid. , nos 2478, 2480 and 2481, each valued at 4 livres). There is an example of a gold tambour hook holder (the hook is missing) in the British Museum: Gere and Tait 1984, no. 436. For the technique of tambour embroidery, see Juliet Carey, ‘The king and his embroiderer’, in Jones, Carey and Richardson 2012, pp. 261–82 at p. 279. (Back to text.)

52 For example by Ribeiro 1995, p. 59, Ribeiro 2002, pp. 144, 146 and figs 95 and 98, and Aileen Ribeiro, ‘Fashioning the feminine’, in Jones, Carey and Richardson 2012, pp. 233–48 at p. 246. The dress has also been identified as made of silk by Parmal 1997, p. 73, and by Courtis , 1998, p. 7, both articles kindly sent me by Lesley Miller. Courtis draws attention to the similarity of the design of Madame de Pompadour’s dress in NG 6440 and that of a Chinese satin silk fabric with a cream ground and painted flowers used in a polonaise style dress in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (V&A, T30‐1910) illustrated in his article at p. 8, fig. 2. (Back to text.)

53 Malboissière 1866, p. 143. (Back to text.)

54 Crill 2008, p. 18, fig. 13; Crill 2015, p. 236, note 111. Chinese silks typically make use of bright greens with the design outlined in a dark colour, whereas Madame de Pompadour’s dress in NG 6440 shows the flowers outlined in their own colours, which is characteristic of Indian chintz. The open design with large flowers is typical of chintz from the early eighteenth century. I am grateful to Lois Oliver for her note (24 September 2009) on the dress worn by Madame de Pompadour. The identification of the fabric as chintz has been accepted by Premola Ghose (2008, p. 163). (Back to text.)

55 On Antoine de Beaulieu’s trip to India, see Berinstein and Lemonnier 1997, p. 63. For designs printed on cottons in Marseilles by 1736 similar to, but less sophisticated than, that on the dress in NG 6440, see samples 128 and 130 of ‘Toilles de Cotton peintes à Marseille 1736’, Extrait de: Echantillons d’Etoffes et Toiles des Manufactures de France recueillis par le Maréchal de Richelieu 1736, vol. 1, nos 126–40 in the BN , Paris (Reserve LH‐45(B)‐Boite Fol, fo. 28). (Back to text.)

56 Crill 2008, no. 81, p. 31, illustrated p. 131. (Back to text.)

57 Cordey 1939 no. 1097, part. (Back to text.)

58 Ibid. , no. 1098, part. (Back to text.)

59 Letter of 25 September 2000 from Lesley Miller citing a letter of 3 January 1760 from the Lyonnais designer and manufacturer, Philippe de Lasalle to (probably) the intendant Trudaine in the AN , Paris ( AN , F12 2199) (Back to text.)

60 Ribeiro 2002, p. 59, notes that the marquise was a patron of the Compagnie des Indes Orientales and that painted silks from China entered Europe via the company’s Indian depots. She advises (email of 23 March 2009) that the sheen on the fabric of the dress in NG 6440 suggests silk, not cotton, and that it would not have been thought appropriate to wear expensive French lace with a non‐silk dress. Susan North has pointed out (letter of 14 February 1998) that it is often difficult to determine the source of painted silk of the period, since the Chinese were painting silks in imitation of European designs for the export market and Europeans were copying the Chinese painted silks in competition. In spite of its losses in India during the Seven Years War, France retained a number of trading posts there. As Howard Coutts has kindly advised me (letter of 12 June 2000), there is a roll of Chinese hand‐painted silk, not dissimilar in pattern to that of Madame de Pompadour’s dress, in the Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Durham (inv. TEX. 14 A & B). The repeat design of flowers on a pale background is close to that shown in NG 6440, but the design is outlined in a dark colour, which, as Crill 2008 points out, is typical of Chinese silk. (Back to text.)

61 An article by Dominique Cardon (Cardon 1998) discusses inter alia the rivalry between France and England in the area of woollen textiles, but this rivalry extended also to cottons, silks and linens (email of 18 June 2015 from Giorgio Riello). For the rivalry in the area of printed cotton fabrics, see Riello 2013, pp. 102–83, and for the amounts of raw cotton produced respectively in the French and British West Indies, see ibid. , p. 255. Riello notes (p. 182) that ‘the economic significance of textiles made research [into printing using colours] a matter of strategic importance for economic as well as political reasons at local and national levels – the protagonists of textile‐printing research in France were connected to the hierarchies of public administration’. Madame de Pompadour’s support for French manufacture of chintzes and silks would be consistent with that for the factories of the Gobelins, La Savonnerie and Vincennes‐Sèvres – a result of her patriotism combined with her personal taste. The ban on manufacturing and importing printed cottons into France, more honoured in the breach than in the observance, not least by Madame de Pompadour, had been lifted in 1759: Delpierre 1998, pp. 56 and 107. For Madame de Pompadour’s breach of the ban see, for example, the complaint made in 1752 by Mignot de Montigny, Treasurer of France, that ‘dans tout le château de Bellevue, il n’y ait pas un meuble qui ne soit de contrebande?’: Bibliothèque Mazarine, Paris, MS 2840, cited by Vergé‐Franceschi 2010, pp. 81–3. An oval half‐length portrait dated 1763 and once attributed to Drouais shows Anne‐Louise Brillon de Jouy, harpsichordist and composer, wearing a dress of similar, but not identical, material to that of Mme de Pompadour in NG 6440 (see Dupuy‐Vachey 2015, p. 242, illus. p. 244, fig. 11). Less in the public eye than Mme de Pompadour, she was presumably more concerned with fashion than making a statement of commercial patriotism. (Back to text.)

62 Levey 1983, figs 331 and 331A. For the identification of the needle lace as possibly Argentan, see Ribeiro 2002, p. 146 and fig. 98. (Back to text.)

63 Parmal 1997, p. 73. On ibid. , p. 77, note 2, Parmal suggests that the garniture may have been that described in Pompadour’s inventory as made of ‘point d’Argentan’, and which, with some other pieces of lace, made up one of its most expensive items (Cordey 1939, no. 1108). (Back to text.)

64 On 12 October 1752 a royal decree was issued announcing that Madame de Pompadour had been given the rank of duchess, and on 17 October she sat, as she was now entitled to, on her tabouret de duchesse at the king’s cabinet. It seems unlikely, however, that the tabouret in Drouais’s portrait, if that is what it is, was intended as an allusion to the sitter’s rank, given that it is part covered by drapery and is acting as a support for her pet dog. (Back to text.)

65 Eriksen 1974, pp. 83–4. (Back to text.)

66 No mandolin is listed in Madame de Pompadour’s posthumous inventory. There is no indication in NG 6440 of any music book or sheet. (Back to text.)

67 Pradère 1989a, pp. 106–9, estimates Madame de Pompadour to have bought some 100 items of furniture from Oeben in the years 1761–3. See also Pradère 1989b, p.17. Svend Eriksen (1974, p. 386) writes: ‘The small panels of marquetry are bordered by stringing composed of a dark and a light fillet, running parallel. J.‐F.Oeben was one of the few ébénistes who took the trouble to provide his furniture with the extra refinement of a double fillet [page 199]like this. Oeben was a specialist in mechanical fittings and the turret surmounting this table is quite likely to have been his invention. The presence of this feature and the double fillet, coupled with the fact that he was Madame de Pompadour’s favourite cabinet‐maker, allows one to attribute this little table to him with a fair degree of certainty.’ The attribution of the work table to Oeben has also been endorsed by Stratmann‐Döhler 2002, pp. 37 and 104. Some items ordered from Oeben by Madame de Pompadour were not delivered at the time of his death, and others belonging to her then in Oeben’s possession were there for repair: ibid. , pp. 152–68, being a transcription of Oeben’s posthumous inventory of 27 January 1763. Possibly the work table in NG 6440, being of the latest design, was among the items ordered but not delivered, and at some point in 1763 or 1764 it may have been decided to have it transported to Drouais’s studio so that he could include it in NG 6440. (Back to text.)

68 Peter Hughes points out that a work table of similar design was in the Goldschmidt‐Rothschild collection in Frankfurt, while another was formerly in the collection of Lord Hillingdon: Hughes 1996, p. 1076, note 1. For Madame de Pompadour’s posthumous inventory see Cordey 1939. The inventory was begun on 27 June 1764, so even if Drouais had the work table in his studio for the purpose of including it in NG 6440, there would have been time to return it prior to the portrait’s completion the previous month. (Back to text.)

69 Eriksen 1974, p. 74. (Back to text.)

70 Oeben’s posthumous sale was held on 5 September 1763 and following days at the enclos de l’Arsenal, cour des Princes (Annonces, Affiches, et Avis Divers, 69, 5 September 1763, p. 618). Lugt records no sale catalogue, but such an elaborate piece as that appearing in NG 6440 was surely specially commissioned and therefore unlikely to have been included in any posthumous sale of Oeben’s stock. (Back to text.)

71 Eriksen 1974, p. 386. A taste for the neoclassic was, however, already evident by 1759 in the commission for a set of wall lights by the marquis de Marigny: Alden R. Gordon in Salmon 2002, pp. 60–1 and fig. 7. (Back to text.)

72 Eriksen 1974, p. 386. Peter Hughes (letter of 10 February 1998) has suggested that the plaques on the drawers are not necessarily porcelain, as usually assumed, but may be enamelled copper as was used on clock dials of the period. (Back to text.)

73 Peter Hughes (letter of 10 February 1998). (Back to text.)

74 Watson 1960. (Back to text.)

75 Letter from Peter Hughes, 10 February 1998. (Back to text.)

76 See Catalogue des livres 1765. There were more than 3,500 lots in the marquise’s posthumous sale. For an overview of its contents see Hourcade 2004b. For an account of some of the individual items in her library see Salmon 2002, nos 119–27 (entries by Isabelle de Conihout). The average size of the Paris private library was 1,000 volumes: Marion 1978, p. 118. (Back to text.)

77 In an analysis of Madame de Pompadour’s library Françoise Weil noted that it included 301 volumes of the Mémoires de Trévoux bound in calf and 85 volumes of the Journal encyclopédique similarly bound: Françoise Weil, ‘La bibliothèque de la marquise de Pompadour’, in Brouard‐Arends 2003, pp. 13–17. The paper size of both these periodicals, however, was 12mo (duodecimo), that is some 7½ × 5 inches (19 × 12.5 cm), whereas the volumes in NG 6440 appear to be 4to (quarto) or some 12 × 9½ inches (30 × 24 cm). (Back to text.)

78 ‘La ressemblance est des plus frappantes, et la composition du tableau est aussi riche que bien entendue. Cette dernière partie n’a été terminée que depuis la mort de cette femme célèbre.’ Mémoires secrets 1762–87, vol. 2 (1777), p. 85. (Back to text.)

79 ‘Hier … nous avons été au Louvre, chez Drouais le fils … Nous y avons vu le portrait de Mme. de Pompadour, qui est réellement une très belle chose. Elle travaille sur un petit métier; son attitude est très noble; sa robe est de perse garnie en dentelle et de la plus grand beauté. Son petit chien cherche à monter sur son métier.’ Luppé 1925, pp. 135–6. On Geneviève de Malboissière, see Martine Sonnet, ‘Geneviève Randon de Malboissière et ses livres, lectures et sociabilité culturelle féminines dans le Paris des Lumières’, in Brouard‐Arends 2003, pp. 131–42. (Back to text.)

80 ‘On a vu la semaine dernière aux Thuilleries un grand portrait de feue Madame la Marquise de Pompadour; ce tableau est de M. Drouais fils, connu pour son pinceau gracieux & la facilité qu’il a d’attraper les ressemblances: ce tableau a été approuvé de tous les amateurs pour le ton de couleur & pour le bel effet; les étoffes y sont senties et bien rendues. Quelques critiques ont trouvé que la manière en étoit un peu peinée & recherchée, surtout dans les dentelles; mais en général les draperies y sont bien jettées & y jouent naturellement. Le pied semble sortir du tableau & la lumière est partout distribuée avec toute l’intelligence du grand peintre.’ L’Avantcoureur, 34, 20 August 1764, pp. 539–40. (Back to text.)

81 ‘M. Drouais le fils, peintre de l’Académie, vient d’exposer, dans une salle du palais des Tuileries, le portrait de Mme. de Pompadour, de grandeur naturelle, travaillant au métier dans un cabinet où l’on voit d’un côté une large draperie formée par des rideaux, de l’autre des livres, des instruments de peinture et de musique,etc. Devant le métier est un petit épagneul regardant sa maîtresse qui a suspendu son travail et qui paraît méditer. Ce tableau, qui est un chef‐d’oeuvre, a été achevé depuis la mort de cette femme célèbre. La tête était finie dès le mois d’avril 1763. On ne peut rien ajouter à la grâce de la figure, quoique dans une situation peu favorable à la peinture, à la richesse et au fini des habits, au goût qui règne dans l’ensemble: le petit chien m’a paru ce qu’il y a de moins bien. Tous les maîtres de notre Académie ont peint Mme de Pompadour; mais, à mon gré, Drouais les a tous surpassés. C’est le seul homme qui sache peindre les femmes, parce qu’il sait les faire ressembler sans nuire à cette délicatesse et à cette grâce qui font le charme de leur physionomie. Aussi, je suis persuadé que toutes nos femmes voudront désormais être peintes par Drouais.’ Tourneux 1877–82, vol. 6 (1878), pp. 50–1. (Back to text.)

82 See under Provenance and note 2 above. It must have been paid for by the time Drouais’s posthumous inventory was prepared on 12 December 1775, since it was not among the portraits for which payment then remained due: D. Wildenstein 1966, pp. 50–5. (Back to text.)

83 ‘Il existoit une femme célèbre par ses charmes, ses talents & sa faveur, qu’elle n’employa pas toujours au plus grand bien de sa Patrie. Amie des Arts par goût, & leur Protectrice par les circonstances, elle voyait sans cesse autour d’elle la foule des Artistes empressés à lui plaire. Des hommes célèbres appellés pour la peindre avaient fait de beaux tableaux d’après elle, mais son portrait était encore à faire, & M. Drouais, plus exercé à peindre les femmes, triompha des difficultés de cet ouvrage. Madame de P***, dont la beauté était un composé piquant de ces Graces fugitives, qui ne tiennent point à l’examen sévère du dessein, qui avait plus de fraîcheur que de jeunesse, & de la grâce sans taille, fut reconnue universellement par le public, qui vint en foule à l’attelier [sic] de M.Drouais, considérer la favourite & admirer l’art du Peintre. / Le nombre des portraits qu’il a fait depuis est très‐considérable; il n’eut point de jolies femmes de son temps, qui ne voulut être peinte par lui, tant il savait tirer parti de la beauté même indécise, en conservant la ressemblance. La fraîcheur, le brillant, la fonte de ses couleurs, la douceur de ses contours, la grâce de ses ajustements rendoient tout intéressant.’ ‘Éloge de Monsieur Drouais’, Le Nécrologe 1767–82, vol. 11 (1776), pp. 135–48 at pp. 143–4. (Back to text.)