The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of January 29, 2020

Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois

1723

Hyacinthe Rigaud

(French, 1659-1743)

France, 18th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 180.5 x 148 x 15 cm (71 1/16 x 58 1/4 x 5 7/8 in.); Unframed: 146.7 x 113.7 cm (57 3/4 x 44 3/4 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1967.17

Location

215 French, German, and Dutch

Description

With his luxurious, flamboyant dress—a voluminous wrap of scarlet silk topped by a short fur cape—the subject of Hyacinthe Rigaud’s portrait was clearly a man of consequence. Guillaume Dubois gained the favor of Louis XIV as tutor to his nephew, Philippe Charles, Duke of Orléans, and served as chief minister under Louis’s successors, the regent Duke of Orléans and Louis’s great-grandson, Louis XV. Dubois was appointed a Cardinal in the Catholic Church in 1721, a lofty aspiration at least partly motivated by political ambition: the title gave him the ability to remove political adversaries with impunity. Dubois holds a letter with the words Au Roy (to the king); this portrait was painted in the same year the young Louis XV ascended to the throne.

Inscriptions

Inscription

signed on base of clock: fait par Hyacinthus Rigaud, 1723

Provenance
1967-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
1956-1957
(Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1956
(Hôtel Drouot, sale, Dec. 10, 1956, lot Q, sold to Wildenstein & Co.)1 1
1907
Edouard Kann, Berlin1 2
1905-1907
(Duveen Brothers, Paris, sold to Edouard Kann)1 3
By 1900-1907
Rodolphe Kann, Paris, collection purchased by the Duveen Brothers
(Possibly P. & D. Colnaghi, London) 1 4
1892
(Sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, May 21, 1892, no. 68, possibly sold to P. & D. Colnaghi)1 5
-1845
George Francis Wyndham, 4th Earl of Egremont [1786 – 1845]
by 1764
Mlle. Violat (heiress of Cardinal Dubois), Chateau de Villemenon, near Brie-Comte-Robert 1 6

Provenance Footnotes

1 1In addition to the Rigaud painting, Wildenstein also purchased Aved's Portrait of Jean-Gabriel du Theil at the Signing of the Treaty of Vienna (CMA 1964.89) at this sale. Prior to this auction, the Rigaud, like the Aved, may have been in the Delaney collection. The Aved painting, as well as Tiepolo painting currently in the Samuel Kress Collection at the National Gallery (1952.5.78), were both owned by Edouard Kann and then by “Mme. Delaney,” who may or may not have been the consignor to the 1956 Drouot sale. Because both the Rigaud and Aved were owned by Edouard Kann and were later sold in the 1956 sale, it is likely that the intervening owner(s) were also the same. The exact path that the Rigaud and Aved took after Kann is unknown; the Tiepolo was sold at the Galerie Charpentier in 1933, but neither the Rigaud nor the Aved appears in that sale.
2 1 The Duveen Brothers stock book indicates, through a "K" in the "remarks" column, that on August 4, 1907, Edouard Kann, Rodolphe's son, purchased the Rigaud and other works from his father's collection
3 1 In 1905, shortly after Rodolphe Kann's death, Duveen announced its purchase of Kann's entire collection, which would be sold from the firm's new office in Paris (Catherine Scallen, Rembrandt, Reputation, and the Practice of Connoisseurship). Because Kann had left no will, problems ensued and it took over two years for the transaction to be officially completed; on August 7, 1907 the completion of the sale was published (James Henry Duveen, The Rise of the House of Duveen). The Rigaud appears under stock no. 156 in the Duveen stock book that inventories the Rodolphe Kann collection.
4 1According to the Frick Art Reference Library's annotated copy of the 1892 Christie's sale catalogue, the painting was purchased by Colnaghi. Unfortunately, Colnaghi's stock books do not go back as far as 1892 and thus this purchase cannot be confirmed. Furthermore, there are no published versions of the painting's provenance that include Colnaghi.
5 1 The sale does include the collection of the 4th Earl of Egremont, but the whereabouts of the painting from his death in 1845 until the sale in 1892 are unknown.
6 1The Archives de l'art français; recueil de documents inédits publié par la Société de l'histoire de l'art français, vol. 19, pp. 312-315 contains the correspondence between Charles-Nicolas Cochin and the Marquis de Marigny that refer to Violat's possession of the painting.

Provenance Citations

Perreau, Stéphan. Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743): catalogue concis de l'oeuvre. Sète, France: Nouvelles Presses de Languedoc, 2013.
Christie, Manson & Woods. Fifty Capital Pictures by Ancient and Modern Masters. 1892.
Mrs. C.A. [Hannelore] Osborne, letter to Martine Delbecq, Nov. 7, 1973, in CMA curatorial file.
Alison Cathie, letter to Ann Tzeutschler Lurie, Feb. 22, 1972, in CMA curatorial file.
Catalogue of the Rodolphe Kann Collection: Pictures. Paris: C. Sedelmeyer, 1907.
Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux anciens…Par ou attribués à: J. Aved – Moreau L’Ainé – A. van der Neer – H. Rigaud et des écoles anglaise, française et hollandaise appartenant à divers amateurs. Dec. 10, 1956.
Duveen Brothers records, 1876-1981 (bulk 1909-1964), Series 1. Business records, 1876-1964, box 115, reel 38, Stock book 1: Rodolfe Kann Collection, 1907, page 12. Digitized. Getty Research Institute.
Citations
De la Chavignerie, Emile Bellier. "Notes pour Servir a L'Histoire de L'Exposition de la Jeunesse." Revue Universelle des Arts XIX (1864): 58-67. Mentioned: p. 61
Carriera, Rosalba, Giovanni Vianelli, and Alfred Sensier. Journal de Rosalba Carriera pendant son séjour à Paris en 1720 et 1721. Paris: J. Techener, 1865. Mentioned: p. 268
Bode, Wilhelm von. Gemäldesammlung des Herrn Rudolf Kann in Paris: 100 photogravuren mit text. Wien: Gesellschaft für vervielfältigende Kunst, 1900. Mentioned and reproduced: no. 88, pl.88
Michel, Emile. "La galerie de M. Rodolphe Kann." Gazette des Beaux-Arts XXV (March 1901): 493-507. Mentioned: p. 503
Marguillier, Auguste. "La Collection de M. Rodolphe Kann." Les Arts II, no. 15 (March 1903): 2. Reproduced: p. 2
Furcy-Raynaud, Marc. "Correspondance de M. de Marigny." Nouvelles Archives de l'Art Français, third series XIX (Paris, 1904): 312-15. Mentioned: p. 312-315
Dorbec, Prosper. "L'Exposition de la Jeunesse au XVIIIe Siècle." Gazette des Beaux-Arts XXXIII (1905): 456-470. Mentioned: p. 460
Kann, Rodolphe, Jules Mannheim, and Edouard Rahir. Catalogue of the Rodolphe Kann Collection: Objets D'art. Paris, France: [publisher not identified], 1907. Reproduced: p. 66, pl. 156; vol. 2
"Esposizione di opere d'arte francese del settecento a Berlino," Rassegna d'Arte X, no. 4 (April 1910): 59-65. Mentioned. p. 59
Roman, J. Le livre de raison du peintre Hyacinthe Rigaud. Paris, France: Laurens, 1919. Reproduced: p. 195
Lurie, Anne Tzeutchier. "Hyacinthe Rigaud Portrait of Cardinal Dubois." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LIIII, no 10 (October, 1967): 230-239. Reproduced: fig. 1,2,8 and cover
"Accessions to American and Canadian Museums." The Art Quarterly XXX, no. 2 (Summer 1967): 153-176. Reproduced: p. 159; mentioned: p. 161
"Year in Review." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 54, no. 10 (1967): 302-46. Referenced: no. 64, p. 343 www.jstor.org
"Chronique des Arts." Gazette des Beaux-Arts Supplement (February 1968): 1-140. Reproduced: p. 64, fig. 246
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 132 archive.org
Lurie, Ann Tzeutschler. "Rigaud's Portrait of Cardinal Dubois." The Burlington Magazine 116, no. 860 (November 1974): 667-69. Mentioned: p. 667-668; reproduced: p. 669
Rosenberg, Pierre. The Age of Louis XV: French Painting 1710-1774 : [Exhibition] 1975-1976, the Toledo Museum of Art, October 26-December 7, the Art Institute of Chicago, January 10-February 22, the National Gallery of Canada, March 21-May 2. [Toledo, Ohio]: Toledo Museum of Art, 1975. Referenced: cat. no. 86, p. 71-72, Reproduced: pl. 26
Lurie, Anne Tzeutchier. "A Note on Rigaud's Portrait of Cardinal Dubois." The Bulletin of The Cleveland Museum of Art LXII, no 11 (November,1975): 276-279. Reproduced: p. 276
"Ottawa, Le Siecle de Louis XV." Vie des Arts XX (Spring, 1976): 70. Reproduced: p. 70, fig. 11
Johnson, Mark M. "Portrait Painting-An Image of Man." Arts and Activities (September 1977): 33-38. Reproduced: p. 35
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 175 archive.org
The Cleveland Museum of Art. The Cleveland Museum of Art Catalogue of Paintings, Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 125-128; Reproduced: p. 126
Berger, Robert W. Public Access to Art in Paris: A Documentary History from the Middle Ages to 1800. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1999. Reproduced: p. 153, fig. 42
Jamin, Pierre-André. Guillaume Dubois, cardinal libertin de Que la fête commence. Paris, France: Artena, 2009. Reproduced: cover page
Walczak, Gerrit. "Unter Freiem Himmel: Die Pariser Kunstausstellungen Auf Der Place Dauphine." Zeitschrift Für Kunstgeschichte 74, no. 1 (2011): 77-98. Reproduced: p. 86
Perreau, Stéphan. Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743): catalogue concis de l'oeuvre. Languedoc,France: Nouvelles presses du Languedoc, 2013. Reproduced: p. 267, pl. 1309
James-Sarazin, Ariane and Jean-Yves Sarazin. Hyacinthe Rigaud: 1659-1743. Dijon: Éditions Faton, 2016. Reproduced: v. 1: p. 195, pl. 139; Mentioned: p. 188, 208, 310, 331, 347, 358, 410, 424, 498, 545, 551, 554, 556, 585, 586; Reproduced: v. 2: p. 474-475, pl. 1390
Exhibition history

L'Exposition de la Jeunesse. Place Dauphne, Paris, France (1723)

Exposition d'oeuvres de l'art français au XVIIIe siècle. Berlin, Germany (1910)

The Painter as Historian. Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY (1962)

Year in Review: 1967. The Cleveland Museum of Art (November 29-December 31, 1967).

The age of Louis XV: French painting 1710-1774. The Toledo Museum of Art (October 26-December 7, 1975); The Art Institute of Chicago (January 10-February 22, 1976); National Gallery of Canada (March 21-May 2, 1976).

Portraiture: The Image of the Individual. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (November 22, 1983-January 22, 1984).

Source URL: https://cmaweb23-bbn-2.clevelandart.org/art/1967.17