Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, 'Marthe Legrix de la Salle, née Agard', probably 1756-8, the hair modified about 1768-9

This is one of the small group of pastels in our collection. The back of the card is inscribed in chalk in what is probably nineteenth-century handwriting: ‘M.me Legrix née d’Hegar.’ Assuming that the inscription is correct, this is Marthe Legrix de La Salle (1716–1777), daughter of Jacques Agard, a successful draper in Bordeaux. She married Jacques IV Le Grix (or Legrix) de La Salle in Bordeaux in 1733. Le Grix was from 1747 the President Treasurer of France at the Finance Office of Guyenne, and was ennobled in 1768. The couple had five children, two of whom died in childhood. According to the memoirs of her son Jacques, at the time Marthe married she was considered to be the prettiest woman in Bordeaux. He also wrote that she had a kind, if somewhat weak character, with a taste for pleasure, gaming and finery.

Marthe looks directly at us, her eyes the same sky blue as her cloak, which is edged in soft white down. Her pink silk dress with its prominent bow at the bust and her powdered grey hair add to this colour palette reminiscent of a cloudy afternoon. Her expression is bright and alert, her eyebrows are raised as though she is gently amused, and her eyes shine like the pearls around her neck. She appears unguarded, welcoming our presence. Marthe’s bone structure is portrayed in a lifelike manner beneath the soft expanses of her flesh and air seems to pass through the waves of her hair giving them a luminous intensity.

The portrait is neither signed nor dated, but assuming that it is of Marthe Le Grix de La Salle, it was probably made in Bordeaux. Perronneau was in the city in 1756–8, when he made pastel portraits of members of the Journu family, and in 1767–9 again portraying the same family. In 1793 this portrait eventually came into the Journu family’s possession through marriage.

There is some debate about the date of the portrait. It is likely that Perronneau made a portrait of Marthe’s brother, Pierre Agard, during his earlier stay in Bordeaux and he might have made this portrait of Marthe at the same time. However, the hairstyle only became fashionable around 1765 to judge from Perronneau’s portraits of other female sitters. It is possible that Perronneau made the portrait of Marthe during his first visit to Bordeaux when he portrayed her brother but then updated the hairstyle on his second visit. The costume, however, with the cloak falling square from the shoulders and a large bow at the bust is from the late 1760s and early 1770s, as seen in other dated portraits by Perronneau, suggesting that the portrait may have been made during Perronneau’s second visit.