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Mme.
de Pompadour as a Patron of the Visual Arts

Author(s): Donald Posner
Source: The Art Bulletin, Vol. 72, No. 1 (Mar., 1990), pp. 74-105
Published by: CAA
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Mme. de Pompadour as a Patron of the Visual Arts
Donald Posner
Mme. de Pompadour, through her purchases and policies, is widely believed

to have been a dominant force in the visual arts in France during the years
around 1750, when she was the mistress and "friend" of Louis XV. An ex-
amination of the evidence for her involvement in the arts shows, however,
that her activity was far more limited in intention and effect than has been
thought, and points to a need for further research into many monuments and
artistic developments long attributed to her initiatives. The possible reasons
for Pompadour's limited role in the arts are considered in a postscript.
ernment policy and expenditures for the arts. She herself

She loved the arts, which she had neither the time nor the talent
bought and commissioned works of art as she began a ca-
to cultivate; but she paid well, and one worked well for her.
reer
- E.-M. Falconet, Oeuvres completes, 3rd ed., Paris, 1808, i, of building, buying, restoring, renovating, and fur-
231.
nishing city and country houses. In the course of her nine-
teen-year life with Louis XV, she had fifteen residences,
Nothing we know about the early life of Jeanne-Antoinette some luxurious, others quite modest and scarcely ever vis-
Poisson, the future Mme. de Pompadour, allows us to say ited by her, but all of which needed furnishings.3 The quan-
anything about her tastes or interests in the visual arts in tity of objects she accumulated in them is staggering to con-
the years before she met Louis XV.1 From her tutors shetemplate. When Pompadour died, it took two notaries and
learned skills that cultivated women of the time might beseveral experts the better part of a year just to draw up an
expected to possess, which for her may have includedinventory of her possessions. It totaled almost three thou-
drawing as well as acting, singing, and playing a musical sand lots, comprising some ten times that number of in-
instrument.2 It is likely that she learned something aboutdividual objects, and it took more than eight months to sell
famous monuments of ancient and modern art, but one everything at auction.4
cannot guess how much. She naturally met art collectors It seems reasonable to assume that after she became the
and probably some artists, in the salon of Mme. de Tencinking's mistress, Pompadour was in a position to exercise,
or elsewhere, but whether in those days she had more than if she wished, an immense influence on the arts. She could
a passing interest in their concerns is unknown. direct and support them by her vast purchases, and through
Pompadour became involved in the visual arts, however, the king and her relatives her activity in the art world could
almost immediately after she was installed as the royal mis- have an official as well as personal stamp. It has generally
tress, in 1745 at the age of twenty-four. She succeeded inbeen thought that Pompadour sought and successfully took
placing her uncle, Charles Le Normant de Tournehem, anda major role in shaping the character and development of
later her brother, Abel Poisson, who became seigneur de the visual arts and of taste in her time. This must have been
Vandieres and then marquis de Marigny, in the post of the opinion of many of her contemporaries. An otherwise
Directeur General des Batiments, which controlled gov- not very friendly biographer in 1758 credited her with en-
This essay is in part the result of work done in several seminars I con- light on some of the people and circumstances surrounding Pompadour.
ducted at New York University's Institute of Fine Arts, including one spon- The most extensive previous essays devoted to Pompadour and the visual
sored by the National Endowment for the Humanities in the summer of arts are today of limited value: A. de la Fiziliere, "L'Art et les femmes en
1979. I wish to thank the Endowment; the participants in those seminars, France: Madame de Pompadour," Gazette des beaux-arts, IIi, 1859, 129-
whose ideas and research contributed much to the material presented here; 152; viii, 1860, 275-302; P. de Nolhac, "Madame de Pompadour et les
and also Alisa Luxenberg and Andrew Shelton for invaluable assistance arts," L'Art, n.s. II, 1902, 564-579; III, 1903, 393-410, 619-636.
in the preparation of the manuscript. Finally, I am most grateful to Pro- 2 Falconet (Oeuvres completes [3rd ed.], Paris, 1808, I, 231) claimed that
fessor Alden R. Gordon, who kindly read and commented on the final she arrived at court "never having drawn," but schoolgirl lessons possibly
manuscript. did not count for him.
1 D. Gallet's biography is the most recent reliable account of Pompadour's 3 Cordey, viii-ix. See also D. Gallet, 227-230.
life. Although not annotated, it includes a very useful discussion of the
4 Cordey, xxi-xxiii.
source literature and an extensive bibliography. Nicolle's book sheds new
POMPADOUR AS A PATRON 75
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1 Carle Vanloo, The Arts Imploring

Destiny to Spare Pompadour's Life.
. . .... .. .... . .
Pittsburgh, Frick Art Museum
(photo: Museum)
couraging artists, interceding with the king on behalf of not to allow their benefactress to be taken from them
those she deemed worthy, and in some measure exercising (Fig. 1).
the functions of the Directeur General des Batiments while By the end of the eighteenth century, in the eyes of a
her brother officially held the post.5 In a flattering state-revolutionary community, Pompadour's identification with
ment of her significance as a patron, a picture painted by the arts of her age could be seen as absolute. During her
Carle Vanloo in 1764, when Pompadour was mortally ill, own lifetime she was attacked as being wanton and mer-
shows allegorical figures of the arts imploring "Destiny" etricious, and her extravagance, ambition, and meddling
5 "Nor does she withall neglect the patronage of ... painting, sculpture, ment evidently reflects a widespread belief at the time that Pompadour
and architecture. . . . she herself in some manner officiates the post [of guided the artistic tastes of Louis XV and controlled her brother's activity.
Directeur des Batiments] for [her brother]. All applications are made to A remark that possibly reflects a statement by a knowledgeable contem-
her by all the artists . . . and there is no eminent one she does not dis- porary is attributed to Pompadour's physician, Dr. Quesnay, in the apoc-
tinguish and encourage. She not only visits herself in person, [artists'] ryphal Memoirs of Madame de Pompadour purported to be by her cham-
work-places . . . but brings the king with her, to whom she points out bermaid, Mme. du Hausset (trans. F.S. Flint, New York, 1928, 62): "No
and recommends their respective merits. For some she has obtained pen- one speaks of [Marigny's] mind and his knowledge, nor of what he is
sions, lodgings in the Louvre, and other advantages and distinctions" doing for the advancement of the arts. . . . people will regard him as
(M.A. Fauques, The History of the Marchioness de Pompadour, London, merely the brother of the favourite." (See also Goncourt, I, 172-176; ii,
1758, 70-71). I owe this reference to Mr. Stephen Rubin. Fauques's com- 76.) People continue to regard him so today. See below, nn. 29, 30.
76 THE ART BULLETIN MARCH 1990 VOLUME LXXII NUMBER 1
were blamed for the nation's ills.6 Now, the moral laxityart, some of which would not exist but for her munificence.
and luxurious self-indulgence of the woman seemed theBut it is doubtful that the history of French art was, except
perfect counterpart and even the cause of an art that hadin limited and quite circumscribed ways, significantly af-
come to be viewed as immoral in content and degenerate fected by her patronage, or by any ideas she had about art.
in form. "Style Pompadour" therefore became one of theAdmittedly, the appointments of Tournehem and Marigny
terms used around 1800 to describe artistic fashions during to the Batiments, and her support for such projects as the
the reign of Louis XV.7 During the course of the nineteenth building of the tcole Militaire, had important art-historical
century those fashions came again to be highly valued, but consequences, but these prove to have been fortuitous re-
the notion of Pompadour's responsibility for them did not sults of goals that did not include the well-being or ad-
change. The Goncourt brothers enlarged upon it as theyvancement of "Art." Allowing for exceptions - a very big
declared her "the sponsor and queen of the Rococo."s Theirone is her contribution to the development of French por-
presentation, so sharp in its logic, apparently so well doc-celain - on the whole it seems fair to say that as a patron
umented and so "right-seeming" in its evocative prose, be-of the visual arts Pompadour was exquisitely tasteful and
came the basis for all later accounts of Pompadour's role wondrously lavish, but not particularly imaginative, not
in the visual arts. especially quick to recognize talent or to appreciate new
In the scholarly literature of our own time, Pompadour ideas, and not much interested in taking initiatives. This is
continues to be understood as the great patron of French very much a minority view. But in the eighteenth century
Rococo art of mid-century, but paradoxically she is also it probably would have been thought overly generous by
viewed as "anti-Rococo," and as a major force in the for- Diderot,"1 and not unfair by the sculptor Falconet, whose
mation of Neoclassical currents in art.9 In fact, her pa- judgment of Pompadour appears as the epigraph to this
tronage and guidance tend to be seen virtually everywhere essay. In our century, a few writers who have investigated
in the arts from 1745 until her death in 1764, and as in- aspects of Pompadour's patronage provide some support
dispensable to their health and progress. It is not only be- for my view of it.12
lieved that Pompadour exercised "sovereign power over the What follows is an analytical description of Pompa-
arts," but also that "it was only [her] influence . . . which dour's role in those areas of the visual arts where, tradi-
tionally, she has been viewed as a creative force. It does
managed
Such a to ensure that
conclusion theof
makes arts were fostered.
Pompadour ... ."10
a patron of al- not pretend to be an exhaustive study of her activity, and
most unparalleled effectiveness in the history of art. It has no attempt has been made to identify or list the many works
necessarily led to the assumption that the character of many of art she owned or commissioned. Its aim is to clarify the
of the major art-historical monuments and developments nature of her patronage and to provide a more balanced
in her time needs no explanation beyond reference to her picture of events in the art world she inhabited. Hopefully,
inspiration-or whims. My own interest in Pompadour's to the extent that Pompadour's activity seems to deserve
patronage did not arise from any doubts about her im- less of the spotlight than has been accorded it until now,
portance or influence; it was, in fact, in an effort to un- it will suggest the need for new research to illuminate other
derstand her motives and the sources of her inspiration that actors and events in that world.
I began this study. My investigation has led me to conclude,
however, that presently accepted notions of the significance Art as Public Relations
of Pompadour's patronage and of her role in fostering the Whatever her influence on the visual arts, it must be said
visual arts are vastly exaggerated, and often entirely wrong. that Pompadour at least appreciated their social uses. By
Pompadour certainly spent, and caused to be spent, an surrounding herself with a superabundance of expensive,
enormous amount of money on a great deal of high-quality fine works of art, this daughter of a bourgeois family, be-
"an important part in the creation of [this] style" (p. 304, also 283).
6 See Goncourt, passim, and pp. 176-177, n. 2, where they report that in
1753, when Pompadour purchased the H6tel d'Evreux for an enormous 10 Levey, 77, 106-107; Kalnein, 283; D. Gallet, 185, 207. Also, P. Lemoine,
sum, someone put a sign on the building reading "Aedes Reginae mere- in De Watteau ai David, exh. cat., Palais des Beaux-Arts, Brussels,
tricum." See also Argenson, vii, 19, 400, and n. 28 below. 1975, 18.
7 F. Kimball, The Creation of the Rococo, Philadelphia, 1943, 4. Even in
11 Writing of Pompadour in connection with his commentary on Vanloo's
this century Pompadour has been viewed as a shallow, wasteful woman allegory (Fig. 1), exhibited at the Salon of 1765 (Diderot Salons, ed. J.
presiding over the development of the snobbish, decadent "style Louis
Seznec and J. Adhemar, Oxford, 1960, ii, 67), he remarked: "Eh bien!
XV." (M. Florisoone, Le Dix-huitieme siecle, Paris, 1948, 44f.)
qu'est-il reste de cette femme? ... l'Amour de Bouchardon qu'on ad-
8 II, 76-78. For the Goncourt brothers, Pompadour's leadership of the arts
mirera a jamais; quelques pierres gravies de Gai, qui etonneront les an-
was both proof of, and deducible from, their thesis that "Woman was tiquaires a venir; un bon petit tableau de Vanloo qu'on regardera quelque-
... the commanding voice of the eighteenth century, .. . the universal fois, et une pinc&e de cendres." For Bouchardon's statue and Guay's gems,
see below, pp. 97f, 101.
and fatal cause, the origin of events, the source of things." (E. and J. de
Goncourt, The Woman of the Eighteenth Century, trans. J. Le Clercq and 12 Francis Watson commented, "... she played Maecenas [to the arts],
R. Roeder, New York, 1927, 243.) though she was a follower rather than a creative force in contemporary
taste." (Wallace Collection Catalogues, Pictures and Drawings, 16th ed.,
9 The term "Style Pompadour" has come to be applied to architectural
and other forms that seem transitional to Neoclassicism. See F Kimball,
London, 1968, 33.) See also the remarks of Biver and Cordey, cited below,
p. 98, n, 153.
"The Beginnings of the Style Pompadour, 1751-1759," Gazette des beaux-
arts, XLIv, 1954, 57-63. Kalnein credits Pompadour herself with playing
come mistress to the king, proclaimed the position,

Other
au-works of art were designed to allude to Pompa-
dour's talents, virtues, or status. Falconet's statue of Music
thority, and affluence of her new status in society. Through
art she portrayed herself to the public as a cultivated(Fig. 13), displayed at her chateau at Bellevue, contains a
woman
reference
of enlightened, wide-ranging tastes and knowledge. This isto her musical abilities.17 Boucher's Rising and
the picture of her that appears in the great portraitsSetting
by Laof the Sun, also seen at Bellevue, must surely be
Tour in the Louvre and by Boucher in the Alte Pinakothek understood to symbolize the stable and enduring relation-
in Munich (Fig. 15), which were exhibited at the Salons ship ofof Louis XV to Pompadour. The regal Apollo rises
1755 and 1757 respectively. The first includes a display from the ofabode of Thetis to begin the day's labors (Fig. 3),
books that puts her in the company of Montesquieu, and atVol-
nightfall returns to take his repose with her."1
taire, and the Encyclopedists;13 in both there are emblems A word must be said about how Pompadour managed
that certify her as a lover of the arts and sciences. to support
It is her acquisitions of art.19 She herself had some
understandable that Pompadour was anxious to project personal
thisresources, and she apparently invested wisely.20
image of herself in the 1750s, because her relationship Herwith
private income was supplemented by an annual allow-
the king had changed by then, and it was especially im-Louis XV, but the total was not adequate to meet
ance from
portant for her to lay claim to social distinction on as herwide
needs. Furthermore, her allowance was not depend-
a ground as possible.14 able. It varied from a high of two hundred and five thou-
Around 1750, for reasons that are not clear, Pompadoursand livres (in 1748) to a low of three thousand livres (dur-
and Louis XV ceased to be sexual partners. Pompadour ing the Seven Years' War), depending on the king's humor
now became, and for the rest of her life remained, the as king's
well as the economic and political situation in a given
special "friend," and she immediately announced year.21 to the What made Pompadour's life style consistently pos-
world that she retained her authority and favor withsible was that she found her way into a position that en-
Louis
by virtue of her new role. She did this most eloquently abled her to have a great part of her expenses paid for by
through art.15 the royal treasury, a position, not incidentally for a woman
Beginning in 1750 she commissioned allegorical statues unafraid to borrow, that also secured her credit.
from Pigalle that portrayed her in the guise of "Friendship," Immediately after her accession as "Royal Mistress,"
in one nurturing true love and affection, in another offering when Louis XV was most willing to accede to her wishes,
herself to a sculptural image (now destroyed) of Louis XV she was instrumental in deposing Philibert Orry, who had
(Fig. 2). These statues were to be publicly displayed in the been Contr6leur General des Finances and Directeur Gen-
gardens of her and the king's chateaux; nineteen other im- eral des Batiments since 1737.22 Orry had been an obstacle
ages of "Friendship," biscuit porcelain statuettes after a de- in the affairs of a number of tax farmers and financiers,
sign commissioned from Falconet, were delivered to her in including the Paris brothers, who were intimates and old
1755 and were evidently intended to serve as gifts with a friends of Pompadour and her family. It is most probable
message (Fig. 7).16 Jacques Guay and, under his supervi- that they instigated the move against Orry and enlisted
sion, she herself engraved gems that showed "Friendship" Pompadour's aid to effect it.23 Its success is an indication
and that could be used when appropriate to impress the of her power and effectiveness in the political and social
wax seals on her letters (Fig. 19). intrigues that were endemic to the regime of Louis XV. She
13 Undoubtedly Pompadour was well read and conversationally familiar Laing, 250-252, 257.
with the world of current ideas, but whether she actually gave serious 18 The association of the abode of Thetis with the French king's "home"
thought to "philosophic" literature cannot be determined. The inventory was established during the reign of Louis XIV with the creation of Gir-
of her books shows that she owned, in fact, an encyclopedic library, cov- ardon's group of Apollo in the Grotto of Thetis at Versailles. (Cf. Die
ering subjects ranging from history, theology, jurisprudence, medicine, Bronzen der Fiirstlichen Sammlung Liechtenstein, Frankfurt, 1986, nos.
mathematics, and military science to literature, music, and the visual arts. 53, 54.) Ms. Perrin Stein, in a paper she is preparing for publication,
My guess is that in its totality the library was acquired less from any explains that another group of paintings, the "Turkish" scenes made by
passionate interest in learning than from a desire to make a conspicuous Vanloo and Pierre for the "Chambre de Mme. de Pompadour" at Bellevue,
claim to intellectual stature. The parts of the library that probably rep- also allude to Pompadour's status at court.
resent her personal interests most closely were the theatrical collection,
19 Pompadour's account books were published by J.-A. Leroi, in Mem-
including some thousand plays, and the novels, of which there were more
oires de la Socidtd des Sciences morales, des lettres et des arts de Seine-
than seven hundred. (Catalogue des livres de la bibliotheque de feu Ma-
et-Oise, III, 1853, 113-152. See Levron (pp. 95-104) for a useful discussion
dame la marquise de Pompadour, Paris, 1765. See also G. Pawlowski, Ma-
of Pompadour's income and expenditures; but note especially D. Gallet's
dame de Pompadour, bibliophile et artiste, Paris, 1888.)
comment, cited in n. 27 below.
14 In 1751 Argenson noted that Pompadour prided herself on her en-
20 D. Gallet, 23. Pompadour speculated in real estate and eventually owned
couragement of the arts, and in 1753, her influence with the king waning,
rather a lot of income-producing property. She also invested in military
he says, she devoted herself to the fine arts. (vi, 342; vii, 409-410.)
ordinance and owned a glass-bottle factory at Svres. (Cordey, ix, xix.)
15 The definitive study is K. Gordon, "Madame de Pompadour, Pigalle,
21 Levron, 103.
and the Iconography of Friendship," Art Bulletin, L, 1968, 249-262.
22 Nicolle, 122-123; D. Gallet, 51-52.
16 Reau, 1922, i, 228-229. At her death she still owned four of them. (Cor-
dey, 43, no. 434.) It is not known how she disposed of the others. 23 Cf. Argenson, v, 269. The duc de Croy commented, in 1747, that the
Paris brothers "6taient les hommes en qui ... [Pompadour] avait le plus
17 See Rhau, i, 160-162. Boucher's Apollo and Isse in the Mus6e des Beaux-
de confiance, et meme, je crois, ceux qui dirigeaient en gros sa con-
Arts of Tours, and his Toilet of Venus in the Metropolitan Museum of
Art, also seem to allude to Pompadour's musical and theatrical gifts. See
duite ... ." (I, 71.)
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2 Pigalle, Madame de Pompadour as 3 Boucher, The Rising of the Sun. London, Wallace Collection (reproduced by
"Friendship." Paris, Louvre (photo:permission
Musees of Trustees, The Wallace Collection)
Nationaux)
and the Paris became leaders of one of the two factions at padour's brother, the future marquis de Marigny.26 Tour-
court, and they were joined by J.-B. de Machault, who was nehem and Marigny, who headed the Batiments from 1751
installed as Orry's successor as finance minister.24 to 1773, were devoted to her. Thus, with her confederate
Some member of this faction, possibly Pompadour her- heading the treasury and her relatives the Batiments, an
self, must have conceived the idea that Orry be replaced enormous amount of the expenditures for the art and ar-
as Directeur des Batiments by the financier Le Normant de chitecture destined for Pompadour's use was willingly
Tournehem. Tournehem, the man she called "uncle" (she treated as "governmental" and charged to the royal
had married his nephew, Le Normant d'Etioles, in 1741), accounts.27
was her mother's lover and quite possibly her real father.25
She reaped an extraordinary, lifetime reward when the king The Administration of the Arts
accepted the idea and, truly gilding the lily, also promised The familial favor that uncle and brother showed to
that when Tournehem vacated the post it would go to Pom- Pompadour does not mean that these men were anything
24 Argenson, v, 83; vi, 225. ber Tournehem became director of the Batiments, and soon after her
brother was promised the succession. See below, n. 45.
25 Pompadour's paternity has been attributed to her mother's husband,
Francois Poisson, to Tournehem (who seems the most likely candidate),
27 "En fait, la comptabilite de la marquise 6tait superbement mle6e A celle
to Paris de Monmartel, and to Paris-Duverney. Cf. Nicolle, 61-64, and
des Batiments et du Tresor, de sorte qu'aucune expertise ne saurait la re-
n. 87 below.
constituer." (D. Gallet, 257-258.)
26 Pompadour was presented to the Court in September 1745. In Decem-
less than excellent and, by the standards of the time, a tour

es- of Italy.34 Neither an Italian tour nor even sp
knowledge
sentially honest civil servants.28 Marigny's directorship, in of the arts had ever been considered a req
for the directorship of the Batiments, and the idea o
fact, had an enormous and beneficial impact on the history
of French art and culture.29 In 1745, however, neithertrip,
one its acceptance as being professionally useful an
willingness
had any special expertise in the arts, and the question that of the government to finance it, indicates a
immediately arises is whether Pompadour attempted toregard
in- at the time for the importance and special chara
fluence and guide their artistic decisions.30 of the arts administration.35 There is evidence that Pom-
padour urged Marigny to make the trip,36 but this does not
To my knowledge, it has never been suggested that Tour-
nehem was in any way dependent on Pompadour's mean ideasthat she originally proposed it. Nor - what is more
or advice. It may be that she was unready to offerimportant
them and has been widely assumed - does it mean
that she
in the early years of her reign, but her uncle does not, in had a special interest in shaping her brother's ar-
tistic sensibility and therefore selected traveling compan-
any case, seem to have been the kind of man who invited
the counsel of dilettantish young women.31 Excellentionsad-
for him who would guide it in a Neoclassical direc-
ministrator that he was, he immediately began identifying
tion.37 In fact, judging from the tone of the letters she wrote
experts and professionals who could serve him, secured
to Marigny while he was away, it would seem that the main
value of the journey from her point of view was that it
their loyalty, and then took their advice and suggestions
wouldof
seriously. The famous art competition o'.1747, the idea help the young man to acquire a certain worldly
jury selection for the Salon exhibitions, the changesophistication.38
in the
Marigny
payment structure for pictures the government acquired in left for a twenty-one-month tour of Italy on 20
December 1749. Some six weeks earlier Pompadour men-
order to favor history painting, the general revitalization
of the Academy - all these developments during Tour- tioned the trip in a letter to the duc de Nivernais, the French
ambassador in Rome: "My brother is taking with him a
nehem's tenure in office were, we know, inspired or shaped
certain Soufflot of Lyons, a very gifted architect, Cochin
by his trusted advisors, men like Charles-Antoine Coypel,
whom he had elevated to the posts of first painter whom
to theyou know, and I think the abbe Leblanc. As for
king and director of the Royal Academy of Painting Collin,
andI have the impression that M. de Tournehem doesn't
want to send him to Rome."39 This letter suggests that Tour-
Sculpture, and the critic and litt'rateur, the abbe Le Blanc.32
nehem,
Pompadour is not known to have advanced or actively to not Pompadour, made the final decisions, if not
have supported any of these initiatives. the initial suggestions, about the trip. It is also the sole
While Tournehem was directing the Batiments, evidence
Pom- we have of Pompadour's interest in who was to
padour's brother, only nineteen in 1746, was becoming a her brother, and, in itself, it certainly will not
accompany
support
courtier and, according to his friend Cochin, trying to learn the contention that she knew much or cared deeply
something about the administration of the Batiments.33about
At his traveling companions' views on art. In fact, nei-
ther Cochin nor Le Blanc had, in 1749 at least, any very
some point it was decided that it would be good if he made
28 Not everyone, of course, thought so. Argenson, himself one of the dis- ce voyage doit coUiter cher a l'ltat. On lui donne des historiographes, des
senters, commented in 1749 about the many scurrilous verses directed batiments, des conseils, des gouverneurs, des dessinateurs. .. ." (vi, 91.)
against Pompadour and her circle. One of them includes the lines: "Les Cochin later offered the same explanation for the trip. See below, n. 45.
financiers s'enrichissent, Tous les Poisson s'agrandissent, C'est le regne 36 In 1750, responding to a letter from Marigny telling her how impressed
des vauriens." (v, 403.) he was with Rome, she wrote, "je crois a present que vous me rendez
29 One expects that this will be thoroughly assessed in Alden Rand Gor- graces souvent de vous avoir engage a ce voyage." (Malassis, 48.)
don's long-awaited study of Marigny's activity. My guess is that such 37 See, among many others, Hautecoeur, Iv, 2, and Gilles Chomer, in M.
conclusions as "Marigny was not an active instigator of change, but a Gallet, 1980, 44. Other unsupported suggestions about who proposed the
passive arbiter, influenced by his sister . . ." (A. Braham, The Architec- trip have been made. Nicolle (p. 140), for instance, believes the idea was
ture of the French Enlightenment, Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1980, 44) Tournehem's; Scott (as in n. 29 above, 26) suggests that it was Cochin's.
will need considerable revision. Meanwhile, see the comments in J. Loc- There is a possibility that the idea was Marigny's own, perhaps first ad-
quin, La Peinture d'histoire en France de 1747 a 1785, Paris, 1912, 18-40, vanced dubiously, but supported by his sister. See below, n. 45.
and B. Scott, "The Marquis de Marigny," Apollo, xcvii, 1973, 25-35.
38 See below, n. 42. A main motive for the trip may have been to get
30 Lemoine (as in n. 10), 18, proposes that Pompadour's main motive in Marigny out of Paris for a time. Argenson wrote (v, 477) on 19 May 1749,
arranging for her brother's appointment to the Batiments was to secure noting the planned trip: "L'on dit que c'est qu'il [Marigny] ennuyait le roi
her own influence on the arts. avec exces."
31 For Tournehem, see Nicolle, passim. 39 L. P'rey, Un Petit-Neveu de Mazarin, Louis-Mancini-Mazarini, duc de
32 Cf. Locquin (as in n. 29), 1-13. Nivernais, Paris, 1890, 163. Collin is Charles Collin, a lawyer who served
33 See below, n. 45. Tournehem and became Pompadour's steward. In addition to his personal
connection to the family, the fact that he was also an amateur who col-
34 Argenson heard about the planned trip in May 1749. (v, 477.) lected paintings and drawings made him a suitable candidate for the trip.
3- Argenson explained that Marigny was going to Italy in order to "se (See L. Courajod, Livre-journal de Lazare Duvaux, 2 vols., Paris, 1873,
former le go it pour nous faire de belles choses en France," adding, "mais I, xxxviii, n. 1.)
well-defined or novel views about art.40 The former was a main Soufflot, that suggests the trip may have had some
successful draftsman and printmaker practicing a Rococopolemical artistic intention, and that gives such seeming
style and working for the Crown in the department of the importance to the selection of Marigny's fellow travelers.
Menus Plaisirs; the latter was a knowledgeable, worldly Soufflot really did have new ideas about art, and his work
intellectual. It was not their ideas about art, but their per- by 1749 was already beginning to prepare the coming of
sonal qualities and abilities that made them suitable com- Neoclassicism. Soufflot had spent the years from 1731 to
panions for Marigny. Cochin could supply insight into the1738 in Rome, and during the next decade he practiced in
professional and technical aspects of art in Italy, as well as Lyons. When he came to Paris in 1749 he already had a
record, in drawings and prints, places and things seen dur- considerable reputation, and Pompadour and her brother
ing the trip.41 The forty-three-year-old Le Blanc could help probably heard about him and met him through one or
to give their travels a broad cultural context and, as the more of their friends who knew his work in Lyons.46 The
oldest and most sophisticated of the group, contribute ma- speculation - too often misrepresented as fact - that
ture as well as socially secure guidance during their months Pompadour was so impressed by a drawing or print of
abroad. Soufflot's H8tel-Dieu in Lyons that she chose him to ac-
On the basis of Pompadour's uncertainty in the letter company her brother in Italy,47 can neither be proved nor
cited above, about whether Le Blanc was actually going, disproved. But it assumes quite a lot about her aesthetic
one might speculate that she or Tournehem was urging him and architectural culture, and her ability to evaluate the
to make the trip and look after the young man.42 Cochin, implications of Soufflot's style. The likelihood that she ac-
by all indications an exceptionally likeable man, was some- tually understood and appreciated them is diminished by
one Pompadour knew well;43 but her brother would there- the fact that in the years after 1755, when the architect was
fore have known him too, and there is no reason not to in Paris and working for the Batiments as well as privately
believe that he, rather than she, chose the artist as a trav- for Marigny,48 Pompadour apparently made no significant
eling companion. That is just what Cochin reported.4 In effort to patronize him herself.49 We must defer for a mo-
fact, Cochin wrote that Marigny chose all three men who ment a discussion of Pompadour's architectural patronage,
accompanied him. Historians have ignored Cochin's tes- but it too supports a conclusion that she did not especially
timony in a desire to attribute artistic initiatives to Pom- appreciate and was not particularly committed to advanced
padour.4s She may have played a role in inspiring and ar- and innovative currents in modern French architecture.
ranging the trip, but it is certainly significant that in Soufflot's qualifications to join the traveling party did
publishing his account of it in 1758, when Pompadour was not, I believe, derive from his personal architectural vision.
naturally an expected reader, Cochin makes no mention of It was enough that he was "very gifted" and came highly
her at all. recommended. Because of the years he had spent in Italy,
It is the choice of the third companion, the architect Ger- he could be counted on to provide expert guidance to the
40 Cochin's critical writings date from after the trip to Italy. In fact, his Marigny ayant ete nomme par le roi en 1746, a la survivance de la place
Voyage d'Italie, based on the notes he made during the trip, indicate thatde directeur . . de ses batimens . . il crut . .. qu'apres avoir passe trois
his ideas on art were then still very tentative. For Cochin, see Rocheblave,annees a prendre toutes les connoissances relatives a cette place, il ne
esp. p. 34, and C. Michel, Charles-Nicolas Cochin et le livre illustre au pouvoit mieux les perfectionner, que par un examen reflechi de toutes les
XVIIIe siecle, Paris, 1987, esp. pp. 14, 74. Le Blanc was a vigorous op- beautes de ce genre, que l'Italie renferme dans son sein. . . . il fit choix
ponent of Rococo ornament in architecture and allied arts, but he was de M. Souflot [sic] ... pour l'accompagner dans ce voyage. ... Il associa
otherwise quite liberal in his views. In opposition to La Font de Saint-encore a ce voyage M. l'abbe le Blanc. .... M. le marquis de Marigny
Yenne, who decried the decline of contemporary art and history painting,me fit l'honneur de jetter les yeux sur moi. .. ." In the dedication of the
Le Blanc defended Rococo artists like Boucher and praised the presentbook to Marigny (i, iv) he also states: "Votre but etoit d'acquerir les
state of the arts in France. Andre Fontaine noted (Les Doctrines d'art en connoissances necessaires pour servir . . . dans la direction des monu-
France, Paris, 1909, 262) that Le Blanc's strong commitment to the ex-mens .. .," and he acknowledges "la bonte dont vous m'avez honorS, en
ample of the antique dates from after the trip made with Marigny. Earlier, me choisissant pour vous y accompagner. . . ." It is worth remarking that
in 1747, he denounced those critics "qui n'approuvent que ce qui est an-part of the passage on pp. 1-2 was quoted by J. Monvale (Soufflot, Paris,
tique." On Le Blanc, see also Eriksen, 1974, 198-199 and passim. 1918, 21), but instead of introducing it with "il [Marigny] crut," Monval
41 Cochin, in fact, made some views of Rome that Marigny sent as a wrote, "elle [Pompadour] pense," followed by "elle fait choix" [of his
present to his sister. See Malassis, 48, 63; also Rocheblave, 24. companions]. See also n. 50 below.
42 The young Marigny apparently needed some looking after, for he was 46 The cardinal de Tencin, archbishop of Lyons, is a good candidate. See
tactless and socially awkward. Marmontel wrote that "en lui l'humeurL'Oeuvre de Soufflot a' Lyon (Institut d'Histoire de lArt, Universite de
Lyon, ii), Lyons, 1982, 16-17.
gatait tout; et cette humeur etait quelquefois h&riss'e de rudesse et de
brusquerie" (cited in Rocheblave, 21), and Pompadour herself, in the letter 47 E.g., Monval (as in n. 45), 21; Kalnein, 283; D. Ternois, in M. Gallet,
to Nivernais quoted in the text above (see n. 39), wrote about him: "I11980, 80.
ne manque pas d'esprit, mais il est trop vrai. Sa verite va meme quelque- 48 For a brief discussion of the relations between Soufflot and Marigny,
fois jusqu'a la duret&." see Braham (as in n. 29), 44-47.
43 She probably met him soon after 1745. In addition to working for her49 She seems, however, to have consulted Soufflot about one minor task,
on behalf of the Menus Plaisirs, he may have begun giving her lessons inthe layout of the apartment she kept as a pied-a-terre at the Capucines
printmaking in the forties. See Rocheblave, 19-21. in the place Vend6me. See M. Gallet, 1980, 52, no. 98. It is interesting
44 See next note and below, n. 50. to note that in 1760, when Pompadour bought the chateau of M6nars,
she engaged Gabriel to carry out architectural work there. After her death,
45 In the Voyage d7talie (1, 1-2) Cochin writes: "Monsieur le marquis de
Marigny, who inherited M6nars, gave the work over to Soufflot.
monuments of ancient and modern Italian architecture. He !20
knew people in Italy and spoke the language. Marigny,

judging from the close friendship that developed between
him and Soufflot, must have liked him from the start. Pos-
sibly Pompadour encouraged the idea that Soufflot should
go along as a companion-guide; but we have it on the au-
thority of a friend of Cochin, Francois Basan, who pre-
pared the 1781 inventory of Marigny's possessions, that
Marigny himself selected the architect to accompany him
on the journey. Unfortunately, Basan gives no motive for
-- - _
the choice.50
Af,,
Marigny and his group, amusingly portrayed by Pier
Leone Ghezzi while they were in Rome (Fig. 4), toured Italy
for nearly two years. The friendships they cemented, what
they saw and the discussions they had about it, made a
permanent impression on their thinking, which, as is well
known, was to have great consequences for the develop-
ment of French art.51 This was a happy, but hardly a pre-
dictable, result of the trip, and one cannot maintain that
Pompadour foresaw or planned it. Indeed, considering the ----- ------~
Aim9
character of her own activity as a patron around 1750, vig-
orous certainly, but neither innovative nor programmatic,
one cannot reasonably suppose that she had anything like
defined aesthetic biases or goals for the future of art and
architecture.
Private and Public Architecture

In 1748 Pompadour ordered the construction of a "Her-
mitage" at Versailles and the next year one at Fontaine- c.MNJo i-r, chl,,li Uir, dc/ Fua ric'l ci/rRe di.
bleau. These small habitations were islands of privacy for Frca c LAb6,B i tco c3. lMcoTorl-u, 3 & V ,,,Cocit n,
4 Ghezzi, Caricatures of Vandieres (Marigny), Le Blanc, Souff
her and the king in the midst of life at the royal court. But
Pompadour also needed residences where she could per- and Cochin. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art (photo:
Museum)
sonally hold court. In 1746 the king purchased the chateau
of Crecy, near Dreux, for her, and she herself acquired the
chateau of Montretout, which she sold in 1748 to buypadour'sLa "favorite architect," but it is not clear exactly what
Celle. These properties required enlargements, renova-about him or his work she favored or how she came to
tions, and redecorations. Crecy was rather distant from employ him. A good guess about the last question is tha
Versailles and La Celle not large enough for her needs. Louis
In XV presented him to her along with Crecy.55 By then
1748 work was begun on the construction of Bellevue (Figs.Lassurance had been in the king's service for twenty yea
5, 6), overlooking the Seine and convenient to both Paris as contr6leur of the royal chateau of Marly, and his sele
and Versailles. Bellevue, the major personal architecturaltion as Pompadour's architect is likely to have been part
project of her life, was essentially completed in 1751.52 dictated by the fact that the cost of at least some of th
The architects of Bellevue were Jean Cailleteau, known work Lassurance did for her could conveniently and dis
as Lassurance the Younger, and Garnier d'Isle, the latter creetly be charged to the Crown.56 Pompadour also ha
responsible for the garden designs.53 Lassurance had beguneasy access, at an equally reduced rate, to the services o
working for Pompadour at Crecy, and he served her fre- the king's Premier Architecte, Ange-Jacques Gabriel, w
quently until his death in 1755.64 He is usually called Pom-
frequently reviewed and revised Lassurance's designs an
50 Michel (as in n. 40), 13-14. Basan adds that Soufflot proposed to Mar-
they seem not to have been especially innovative. See I. Dennerlein
igny that Cochin, who was the architect's friend, join them on the trip.
Gartenkunst der Regence und des Rokoko in Frankreich, Bamberg, 1
51 Cf. Cochin's remarks in 1769 about the trip and its results (quotedpassim.
in
Hautecoeur, iv, 1). 54 Hautecoeur, III, 549-555, surveys Lassurance's work for Pompadour.
52 For the chateau, its furnishings, and gardens, see Biver; for the building
55 Ibid., III, 549.
history, also Tadgell, 155-159, and G. Poisson, in Gallet-Bottineau,
56 This became even easier after 1749, when Lassurance was appointed
248-251.
Architecte Ordinaire du Roi.
53 I have not studied Pompadour's possible importance for the history of
57 For Gabriel's work for Pompadour, see the relevant entries in Tadgell
French garden architecture. She apparently loved gardens, and thoseand
cre-
Gallet-Bottineau.
ated for her were reputedly of great beauty, but while reflecting new trends,
iii
-7-f ~~~~~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ;:_ii:.ii, i-:: "iI i ii I: ii)i ? ... ....
? ~r~1,::.iZx+--~i~--:?-::i---?--~-- U u ;I;- +I-+i L'-I -v "" _?.". ,,.',+ +,

--".--??:i-P : I E D ri, -L.,4 TEBPAS? O RANOi-,EP-:T:S R ~ ~ ~ ::::;--::;~l:-~-~*~~Ti-
-E l~--I: I?~r L:~~-::::::" l.~laA :::: N': S, :a-:::m.i
- -i-f-~
nt V, it" dour.
ru.,-R~efu- .'4, t weox~thnit, a 'ryl, ,rwItuble he okzml'rwi4mrAj?lee
, +,-.V
AUTR, C V
14i,?i
. D, ,AV.
T E T-T DE ELL
?,.-,+ .+-,,..,,,..,,,,...,,+.. .+ , ,, AA
5 J.-B. Rigaud, View of the Chateau of Bellevue, engraving (photo: Giraudon)
who took charge, often at the command of Louis XV, of a

number of projects for her.-7
Pompadour was evidently happy with Lassurance's work
for her. Not much of it survives, but from what we do
know of it from plans and views, it can be described as
highly competent, functional, elegant, and tastefully re-
:---: + ++ ++++++++++ strained. None of it, however, rises to a level of true dis-
.+ . + .: . .... .. . .
:-++ ::: : i::i+++++ ++++ ++++++ ++ +
....... ..................... tinction, and it is also, in Fiske Kimball's words, "of great
!++++:++++ ++ +++++++++ conventionality." And Kimball adds: "The legendary charm
of [Lassurance's houses for Pompadour] lay not in any nov-
+++: ... ................. . .. . + .. ... .... i
....... ... .. +++++++++ ++i++++++++
+++++++++++++++++++++ + P: r ++ Y+ I+++:+++)+i+._+.+
+++ +++ ++ elty of effects of space or surface, but in the wealth of paint-
ing and sculpture . . . the luxury of contents, the variety
iE?+-.iiii ......... ::: ::,+::: 1?.,. I+++++.: !: +++: of accessories .. .58 In the context of an inquiry into the
aesthetic and intellectual quality of Pompadour's architec-
tural patronage, .this judgment is damning.
It seems legitimate to question the depth of Pompadour's
interest in architecture. She did not herself, in fact, initiate
many new building projects. It is possible that she was in-
hibited by the adverse publicity that displays of expensive
new construction necessarily caused. At Bellevue an effort
was made, for the sake of appearances, to have the bills
paid in her name, but even so it was an open secret that
6 Carle Vanloo, Allegory of Architecture (showing the main the State was spending huge sums there to indulge the king's
facade of Bellevue). San Francisco, Fine Arts Museums, Mildred mistress.59 Still, one senses that Pompadour actually pre-
Anna Williams Collection (photo: Fine Arts Museums) ferred to buy existing buildings that could be remodeled
and renovated where necessary. That way she escaped the
bother of planning, construction, and the long wait before
moving in and decorating.
58 As in n. 7 above, 196-197.
59 See Biver, 12-18, and Tadgell, 155-156.
Louis is known to have had a fairly well-defined notion of

Naturally, like anyone building or moving into a new
home, Pompadour had an idea of what she liked "le
andbon gofit," again probably developed through the guid-
ance of Gabriel. "Simplicite" and "noblesse," in the sense
needed, and it is only to be expected that she would have
consulted with her architects and told them what she had given them in the writings of Blondel and the buildings of
in mind.60 At the time that construction at Bellevue was Gabriel (and lesser architects like Lassurance), were qual-
beginning, the marquis d'Argenson noted that she was ities he greatly admired.66
avidly busying herself with the details of building.61 But it It has been suggested that Louis XV proposed that Las-
does not appear that she aimed at any very sophisticated surance be engaged as one of Pompadour's architects. One
architectural goals. When Bellevue was about finished she usually supposes, however, that she used his and her other
expressed her pleasure with it in a letter to a friend: the architects' services as she chose, to satisfy her architectural
views from the chateau are delightful (Fig. 5), she wrote, needs and caprices. An eighteenth-century story of the cre-
and the house, although not especially large, is commo- ation of Bellevue has it that one day, happening to pass by
dious and charming, without any ostentation [nulle espece a spot overlooking the Seine, Pompadour was struck by
de magnificence] (Fig. 6).62 Her comments perhaps suggest the extent and beauty of the view. She immediately thought
an appreciation of those qualities of restraint, propriety, of building a residence there. Heedless of the obstacles to
and fitness for use that characterized the architectural construction presented by the terrain, she made an ap-
thinking of Blondel, Gabriel, and Lassurance, and that pointment with her architects and, at the site, explained to
Louis XV also valued, as will be seen. But it would be in- them where and how she wanted the buildings and gardens
cautious to assume that they reflect a commitment on Pom- laid out.67 But other evidence indicates less spontaneity on
padour's part to higher architectural principles. What is her part and greater dependence on Louis's decisions than
missing here and elsewhere in what we know of her interest one would guess from this pleasant tale. In 1748, when it
in architecture is any reference to the character of the was decided that the marquise needed a better residence
spaces, the composition of forms, the articulation of sur- than was provided by Crecy and La Celle, the king appears
faces - that is, to the substance of the art of architecture. to have considered purchasing the seventeenth-century
That she did not, in fact, much notice or care about such chateau of Maisons by FranCois Mansart. According to
things is strongly suggested by a letter she wrote to her Blondel, after finding Maisons unsuitable, he "ordered the
father in 1753. Pompadour complained about all the State construction of Bellevue."68 We know that Louis had orig-
money spent on buildings for her, and she maintained that, inally planned to build a pavilion for himself at Bellevue,
for herself, it could have been used more profitably. Of all but he abandoned his own project and gave the land to
that building activity, she wrote: "it has amused the king."63 Pompadour.69 And he paid the bills for the construction of
Louis XV's interest in architecture awakened, or at least her chateau. All this means that crucial decisions involving
quickened, in the 1730s, probably under the influence of the choice of site, architectural requirements, and cost es-
A.-J. Gabriel, whose company and work he greatly en- timates were made or approved by the king. Certainly he
joyed. As early as 1739, six years before Pompadour en- consulted Pompadour. But it seems not at all fanciful to
tered his life, contemporaries tell of the hours he spent picture him, the passionate architectural dilettante, with
watching Gabriel at work at the drafting board and work- her at his side, studying the architects' plans, proposing
ing with him, discussing projects, making drawings him- changes, watching work in progress. In such matters, he
self, and suggesting alterations on plans submitted to him.64 was experienced and interested in a way that she was not.
He was entranced by architecture. The marquis d'Argenson Is it fanciful to imagine that he also helped her - not she
reported that Pompadour and her friends knew of no sure him - to an understanding and appreciation of le bon goait
way to entertain the king except to put architectural plans in architecture?
and drawings on his desk.65 It is doubtful that his passion I suggested earlier that Pompadour has been given credit
for the art of building was accompanied by any deep or for decisions that may well have been taken by her brother,
far-reaching interest in architectural theory. Nonetheless, Marigny. Now I would suggest that her reputation as a
60 The duc de Croy reported seeing her, pencil in hand, going over the produit un revenu considerable. Je n'ai jamais rien d6sir~ .
plans for Crecy. (I, 87.) (Ibid., 19-20.)
61 v, 289-290: "Elle croit s'amuser a l'infini par les details de batiments 64 Gallet-Bottineau, 132-134. See also P. Hunter, "A Royal Taste: Louis
qu'aime n6tre monarche, et elle s'applique ce go it-la a elle-meme." (My XV - 1738," Metropolitan Museum Journal, vii, 1973, 89.
italics; cf. n. 63 below.) Already in the 18th century it was believed that 65 vII, 299. See also Croy, I, 213-214.
Pompadour personally contributed to the plan for the siting and arrange-
66 Cf. Tadgell, 3.
ment of the buildings and gardens at Bellevue, and, as well, for the con-
ception and design of the gallery there. (See below, and Goncourt, 177- 67 The story first appeared in print, a year after Pompadour's death, in
179.) This is impossible to substantiate, and it is doubtful that she could Piganiol de la Force, Description historique de la ville de Paris et ses en-
have given her architects more than general indications of her desires. virons, Paris, 1765, ix, 38-39. Biver (pp. 7-8) has already pointed out that
it must be a fanciful anecdote.
62 Malassis, 105-106.
68 J.-F. Blondel, Cours d'architecture, Paris, 1772, III, 88. Cited by Tadgell,
63 "Ce que j'ai m'a 6t6 donn6 sans que je l'aie demande. Les d6penses faites
3, n. 13.
pour mes maisons m'ont beaucoup f$ch6e. C'a ete l'amusement du maitre;
mais si j'avais d6sir6 des richesses, toutes les d6penses faites m'auraient 69 Tadgell, 155.
knowledgeable patron of architecture is greatly exagger- other credits her with the selection of Gabriel as the ar-
ated and based on an underestimation of the king's role in chitect of both projects.75
her architectural activity. Louis XV still seems generally The history of the place Louis XV involves a complicated
thought of by art historians in the way the Goncourts de- interplay of political, financial, and artistic intrigues, about
scribed him in their biography of Pompadour: a man with which no more need be said here than that at the beginning
a limited attention span, suffering from chronic ennui, there was a plan by the city of Paris to erect an equestrian
which was relieved only by Pompadour's ability to invent monument to Louis XV; in the middle was the problem of
endless distractions and amusing novelties for him, among selecting a site for it; at the end was the problem of choos-
which were changes of scene and architectural surprises.70 ing an architect and design for the monument's urban set-
But the fact is that the king had plenty of personal interests. ting. Pompadour had no role at the beginning. She did,
Besides architecture, he was curious about the sciences, and however, have friends and relatives who were very inter-
enjoyed reading about astronomy, physics, chemistry, and ested in the middle phase. There was money to be made
botany; his hobbies ranged from making amateur experi- from the sale of land for the site and the development of
ments in his laboratory, to turning objects on his own lathe, it. She may well have used her political influence to support
to cooking.71 The true source of Pompadour's attraction for the wishes of her friends, but we have no record of it. The
Louis XV, I believe, was not in inventing distractions for last phase is the one that involved aesthetic decisions.
him, but in frequently sharing, and always supporting, his Among the nineteen architects who submitted designs for
own enthusiasms. the consideration of Marigny and the king in 1753 was Las-
We may feel sure, for example, that Pompadour en- surance. Whether or not Pompadour pressed her brother
couraged the king's building projects at Versailles's Tria- and Louis on behalf of her "favorite" architect is unknown;
non. Trianon had long been one of Louis's favorite places, if she did, her supposed power over the arts was less than
and evidently it was on his own initiative that in 1749 he "sovereign." Marigny, politely but officially, declared Las-
set about making it into an attractive abode for himself and surance's plan less than first-rate. The king wanted Gabriel
his mistress. Putting Gabriel in charge, he ordered the con- to do the job, although Marigny did not, and he wanted
struction of new buildings, the Nouvelle Menagerie, the it done on its present site, despite Marigny's objections.
Pavillon Francais, and, finally, the small house known as History has proved Louis wise in his decisions in this
the Petit Trianon. The last named is a great and historically instance, and it seems willful and fanciful speculation to
important building. It has been said that it "had to be made attribute his wisdom to the influence of Pompadour,
wholly according to le goat nouveau; that had been decidedwhose voice is nowhere heard in connection with the place
by the marquise de Pompadour."72 But there is no evidence Louis XV.76
that she in any way determined the character of any of the There is, however, a good deal of evidence of Pompa-
work done at Trianon. The records show that Louis XV dour's involvement with another of the great enterprises of
followed activity there with great attention; but nothingthe period, the foundation and construction of the Ecole
we know justifies giving Pompadour any substantial re-Militaire. On 18 September 1750, two days after she had
sponsibility for it.73 visited St.-Cyr, the famous school for girls, she wrote to
The belief that Pompadour was an active, decision-mak-Joseph Paris-Duverney saying that people there had sug-
ing participant at Trianon can only rest on the notion that gested that a similar school be established for men. She
she exercised her influence on architecture (and everything continued: ". . . when our affair transpires [those people]
else) wherever and whenever she could. The main support will think it was their idea."'' Earlier, on 26 May of that
that can be found for this idea is really just another as-year, Paris-Duverney had written to Pompadour about "the
sumption, about her role in the realm of public architec- project you cherish."'7 It is these comments, plus the fact
ture. This is an area in which she was not naturally calledthat when funds were needed to keep the project alive she
upon to participate; if she felt impelled to do so there, she was ready to make considerable monies available from her
must have done so everywhere. personal resources,79 that led the Goncourts and others,
One recent writer has declared that Pompadour inspireddown to this day, to credit Pompadour with the conception
the creation of the place Louis XV (now place de la Con-of the icole Militaire.
corde) and the construction of the icole Militaire.74 An- Students of Gabriel's work are mostly aware that the
70 Goncourt, I, 152-157, 181. former is another instance of giving Pompadour credit for the initiatives
of Marigny.
71 Hunter (as in n. 64), 95, 108-109, and Argenson, VII, 118. For a brief,
lucid description of Louis XV's personality, see P. Gaxotte, in Louis XV. 75 Scott (as in n. 29), 28.
Un Moment de perfection de l'art francais, exh. cat., H6tel de la Monnaie, 76 For the place Louis XV, see J. Ducros, in Gallet-Bottineau, 254-276, and
Paris, 1974, xlviii-lxvi. Tadgell, 175-181.
72 C. Baulez, in Gallet-Bottineau, 179. See also Kalnein, 307. 77 11. .. Ils croiront, quand notre affaire cera scue [sic], que c'est eux qui
7 For the work carried out at Trianon, see esp. Tadgell, 124-126; Baulez, ont donn6 l'id6e." Cited in Laulan, 293.
in Gallet-Bottineau, 168-181; and n. 151 below. 78 Goncourt, I, 201-203.
74 Lemoine (as in n. 10), who also sees her as responsible for Ste.-Ge- 79 Tadgell, 190-191. See also A. Thierry, La Marquise de Pompadour, Paris
nevieve and the Petit Trianon. The latter has been discussed here. The
and Geneva, 1959, 113-114, and Malassis, 20.
Duverney's project was clearly a political and personal

originator of the project was not she, but Paris-Duverney,8o
which was conclusively demonstrated some years ago duty,by
the more easily fulfilled because it was clearly also
Robert Laulan. In fact, the idea goes back to a proposal
useful to the Crown and to her own good reputation.88
made perhaps as early as 1718 by Paris-Duverney's older
It may well be that Pompadour's help was indispensable
brother, Antoine Paris, and that he took up in 1748 orinsoon
getting the approval of the king and his ministers for the
after.81 In January of 1750 Paris-Duverney prepared aenterprise
mem- and in keeping it alive in difficult times. To the
extent
orandum outlining it, and it is clear from surviving cor-that it was, Pompadour must be given a share of
respondence dating from the next months82 that he had so-for the creation of the Lcole Militaire. But it must
credit
licited Pompadour's support for the project and that she
be recognized that her motives in helping, insofar as there
was actively promoting it. Furthermore, it transpires that for them, do not include an appreciation of the
is evidence
the model for the institution he had in mind was not St.- artistic potential of the project. Indeed, it does not appear
Cyr, but the "School for Cadets" that had been founded in that she was ever interested in the aesthetic character of
1732 at St. Petersburg.83 the structure that was being designed to house the school.
PSris-Duverney was a financier and a provisioner of mil- There is first of all no reason to think that she was in
itary supplies, and obviously he had a selfish interest in any way responsible for the choice of Gabriel as its archi-
this enormously costly project, for which he undertook to tect. Unlike his selection for the place Louis XV, this project
arrange financing. In fact, he turned a pretty profit from seems to have fallen to him naturally in his capacity as
it, and his attempts to gain still more led to conflicts with Premier Architecte during the course of 1750, with no
Tournehem and Marigny. Pompadour, caught between known opposition or competition.89 Undoubtedly the king
conflicting loyalties, remained neutral in their disputes.84 favored him.
Along with self-interest, however, love of king and country The history of the construction of the Ecole Militaire is
appears to have been one of Paris-Duverney's genuine mo- a long and complicated one, involving adjustments to the
tives. The scheme had great symbolic and practical value: plans, submissions to the king, negotiations with the di-
it would be a monument to the glory of Louis XV, an ob- rectors of the Batiments, disagreements between Gabriel
vious link and a worthy successor to the Invalides of Louis and Paris-Duverney.90 The latter participated in every as-
XIV's century; a timely gesture of support for the nobility pect of it. It is he who proposed the arrangement and dis-
and the army in the political competition with parliament tribution of the buildings, preparing detailed memoranda;
and the clergy;85 and a principal means for improving the he who studied and commented on the plans; who insisted,
quality of the nation's military forces. Such considerations with the support of the king, that decoration be kept within
evidently played a large role in Pompadour's permanent the limits of "une belle et noble simplicite"; who was con-
commitment to the project, which she herself declared came cerned that utility and beauty be united in the structures,
from a desire to immortalize the king and to demonstrate but who reminded Gabriel that if a choice between them
her attachment to him and to the State.6 But I suspect that need be made, the former had precedence.91 The creation
her readiness to participate in the project and her tenacity of the Ecole Militaire was a triumph of creative patronage,
in doing so had at least an immediate source in her rela- and Paris-Duverney was its hero. As for Pompadour, we
tionship and sense of obligation to Paris-Duverney. are free to imagine that she expressed her aesthetic views
I have already mentioned that the PSris brothers stood about the project in private conversations. But imagine is
alongside Pompadour as leaders of a court faction. Their all we can do, and, given what we have seen of her interest
wealth gave them enormous influence, and they certainly in architecture elsewhere, there is little justification for such
used it to promote Pompadour's interests. This was only imaginings.
to be expected, since Jean Paris de Monmartel was, in fact,
her godfather, and Paris-Duverney, whom she addressed French Porcelain
familiarly as "cher nigaud," was close enough to her to be As in the case of the icole Militaire, one must attribute
proposed by at least one biographer as possibly her real a large part of Mme. de Pompadour's efforts on behalf of
father.87 Be that as it may, her vigorous support of Paris- what became the Manufacture Royale de Porcelaine de
80 Curiously, M. Gallet is an exception (Gallet-Bottineau, 278), and he isn. 25.

contradicted in the same book by Jean Ducros (p. 267).
88 Laulan points out that Pompadour seems to have made an effort to
81 See R. Dubois-Corneau, Paris de Monmartel, Paris, n.d., 293-294, and advertise and magnify her role in the undertaking, and that she herself is
Laulan, 285, 288. to some extent the source of the myth of her responsibility for it (pp. 286-
82 Laulan, 289-293; Tadgell, 181-182; Ducros, in Gallet-Bottineau, 267. 287, 294, 297-298). Laulan even suggests that Pompadour came to imagine
that she was actually the originator of the project. I do not think the
83 Laulan, 289, 292. Paris-Duverney, responding to Pompadour's letter
evidence supports this idea.
about her visit to St.-Cyr, made a point of telling her that his project was
for a different kind of institution. (Malassis, 125-126.) 89 Gabriel was already in charge of the project in November of 1750. See
R. Laulan, LEcole Militaire de Paris, Paris, 1950, 114; also p. 18, where
84 Argenson, vi, 332; viI, 106-107.
Laulan explains that nothing is known about the selection of Gabriel, but
85 Laulan, 291. posits, without explanation, that Pompadour was behind it.
86 This in 1755, when she offered funds for the project. (See Thierry, as 90 This history is most conveniently summarized by Tadgell, 181-194.
in n. 79.)
91 Laulan (as in n. 89), 20, 118, 120.
87 N. Mitford, Madame de Pompadour, New York, 1954, 23. Cf. above
production, large subsidies from the king were required to

France to her perception of the national interest and to her
keep it going.97 By the early 1750s it was in need of new
desire to be identified as one of its champions. Appreciating
financing and also new buildings in which to expand. I
the French porcelain industry's importance as a potential
1753 the company was recapitalized, with Louis XV sub
source of revenue and as a fund of cultural prestige, she
scribing for fully a quarter of its shares. In the same year
urged her countrymen to support it. "One is not doing one's
duty as a citizen," she is reported to have proclaimeditatbegan to move its operations to Sevres, near Pompa-
dour's chateau at Bellevue.
the king's suppers, "if one doesn't buy this porcelain."92 She
herself set an extraordinary example, spending huge sumsIt may be that her interest in the Vincennes enterprise
was awakened through Hendrick van Hulst, an amateur
over the years on the acquisition of more than two thou-
sand pieces of Vincennes-Sevres ware.93 and an active, honorary member of the Royal Academy o
Painting and Sculpture. He was a friend of Pompadour's
Pompadour is, however, usually credited with doing far
more than merely supporting the industry through her pur-uncle, Tournehem, and from 1745 or shortly after he served
chases and exhortations, and with being interested in more
as artistic advisor to the Vincennes factory.98 In any event,
than just its economic and political value. Students of the in the late 1740s Pompadour was one of the small group
history of French porcelain today would not go so farof as people acquiring examples of its still modest output,9
the Goncourts, who insisted that Pompadour "created" the and an anonymous diarist of the time even stated that i
porcelain factory, "inspired" and "supervised" it, "encour- was principally through her protection and support that
the enterprise managed to survive in those days. This may
aged its artists" and "compelled" the king to take a financial
be an exaggerated claim,1" but at the very least it seems
interest in it;94 but it is generally conceded that she probably
did play an important role in its establishment and its certain
ar- that Pompadour would have seconded Louis XV's
tistic as well as economic development. Unfortunately, lack
decisions to continue his subsidies to the factory during this
of documentation makes it impossible to assess the exact
period. By 1751 she is recorded as a person whose favor
nature of that role. Still, it is possible to separate conjecture
one might hope to attract by showing interest in the com-
from fact and wishful thinking from probabilities. pany,101 and it is possible that she played a role in the re-
Pompadour naturally played no part in the early historyorganization of the company between 1751 and 1753, sinc
of French porcelain,95 which effectively began about 1740, some of the shareholders were apparently her friends. And
when, with approval and a loan of money from Louis XV, of course she may have influenced the king's decision to
a workshop was set up at the royal chateau of Vincennes make a major commitment to it then.102 She herself began
to increase the amounts she spent on Vincennes-Sevres
in an attempt to produce porcelain that could rival Oriental
and Meissen ware. In 1745 a small private company was products every year, simultaneously decreasing her pur-
formed that successfully petitioned the Crown for an chases
ex- of other wares. In 1753 she became the first private
clusive patent to produce porcelain "in the Saxon [Meissen]
purchaser of a whole Vincennes porcelain dining service.103
style" ("so that consumers should not have to transfer cap-
Significantly, in the same year, with the new "French" in-
ital to foreign countries in order to procure this kinddustry
of established and beginning to produce in quantity,
she seems to have stopped buying Meissen porcelains; in
object").96 It also obtained permission to continue its use
of quarters at Vincennes and conditional remittance of the1756 she apparently ended her purchases of Oriental
wares.'04 The company was well aware of its debt to her;
king's loan. This occurred in July, two months before Pom-
padour's presentation at court. in 1755 it made her an appropriate gift of the nineteen bis-
cuit statuettes of Falconet's Friendship that she had
It is during the next years that Pompadour became in-
volved in the affairs of the company. Although the Vin-
ordered .1s0
But if it is thus plain that Pompadour loved porcelain
cennes factory began, and gradually increased, commercial
92 Argenson, viii, 211-212. Bachelier, incidentally, claimed (p. 9) that in 1748, may have been revised before its publication in 1766.
1750 France was importing 300,000 livres of foreign porcelain, but that 101 The factory's chemist, Hellot, described one of the shareholders, J.-F.
ten years later it was exporting as much. de Verdun, as being "actif et zle [on behalf of the company] afin de faire
93 Terrasson, 39.
sa cour . .. . Mme de Pompadour." (Chavignac-Grollier, 136.)
94 1, 199-200. Terrasson, however, comes close to a full endorsement of 102 Argenson, vii, 384, for the shareholders. Later, according to Bachelier
the Goncourts' views. (p. 9), Pompadour's assistance was solicited in the successful effort to have
the king buy out the other shareholders.
95 For a summary of this history, see Eriksen-Bellaigue, 25-39.
96 Chavagnac-Grollier, 123. 103 It consisted of 106 pieces and must have been ordered a year or two
earlier. (Eriksen-Bellaigue, 72-73.) A service for Louis XV was begun in
97 Terrasson, 69, 71.
1751 and its delivery began in 1753. That service, when complete in 1755,
98 See S. Eriksen, The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon numbered an astonishing 1,749 pieces. See P. Gregory, "Le Service bleu
Manor: Sevres Porcelain, Fribourg, 1968, 16-17. Van Hulst became c'lestean de Louis XV ' Versailles," La Revue du Louvre, xxxi, 1982, 40.
associd libre in the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in 1747. See
104 This is based on the account books of Lazare Duvaux, from whom,
further on Van Hulst, L.A. Olivier, " 'Curieux,' Amateurs and Connois-
until his death in 1758, Pompadour bought most of her porcelain (cf. nn.
seurs: Laymen and the Fine Arts in the Ancien Regime," Ph.D. diss., The93 above and 141 below). I am indebted to an unpublished paper by
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1976, 115-117. Rebecca Rushfield on Pompadour's purchases from Duvaux.
99 Fay-Hallk and Preaud, 15. 105 Fay-Halle and Preaud, 149.
100 Dauterman (p. 155), who points out that the journal entry, dated July
she owned at Sevres. But Antoine d'Albis and Tamara

and was an early, enthusiastic supporter of its fabrication
in France, it is far less certain that Louis XV's actions on have recently pointed out that Pompadour was a
Preaud
behalf of the factory were primarily the result of most certainly not the owner of the property the factor
her in-
acquired.'" The story of the move remains fragmentary
spiration and influence on him. He had, after all, period-
but
ically approved government support for the enterprise from the little we know it appears that it involved sev-
from
as early as about 1740, and his ministers of finance, eral distinct, but interrelated considerations. It is unlike
first
that the move originated, or was supported by Louis XV
Philibert Orry and then J.-B. de Machault, were assiduous
merely
in their efforts to further its development. The factory made because Pompadour fancied the idea of a neigh-
certain that the king knew something of its progress andporcelain works. The decision to relocate was unde
boring
discussion in 1751110 because, one imagines, the needed ex-
of the quality of its work, in 1748, for example, presenting
him with a porcelain vase (through the intermediary ofpansion
the of the factory could not be easily effected at Vin
queen - not, one might note, the mistress)..'6 Forcennes.111
a man Presumably there were several sites that coul
who dabbled in chemistry and enjoyed making things have
with satisfied the company's physical needs, but the king
his hands, the problems and processes of fabricating no por-
doubt partly at the urging of Pompadour, made it clear
celain must have held considerable fascination. From about
that he favored Sevres.112 Its convenience, for him and his
mistress, naturally contributed to his decision. It was made
1750 on he showed an interest in the factory and a devotion
to its well-being that cannot reasonably be attributed
still more convenient for him by the construction of a
merely to a desire to please Pompadour. He visited apartment
it fre- he could use during his visits there.113 But an
other
quently, "took an interest in all its operations," and, ofpossible motive for the choice of Sevres intrudes
course, bought enormous quantities of its wares.107 He the story. It may be that the existence of a glass-bottle fac
pre-
tory there, with its related technology, was attractive t
sided personally at annual exhibitions and sales of its prod-
ucts at Versailles,o08 and, after long subsidizing it, in the company when it was considering the site. Evidently
1759
he purchased the factory outright and transformed itPompadour
from saw in it an opportunity for personal financ
a private profit-making business into a state-financed gain,
royalwhich the king must have approved. In January o
enterprise. 1752, just two months before the porcelain company pu
What seems most likely from the evidence we have chasedis the site at Sevres, she was given the license for t
that in Vincennes-Sevres ware Pompadour and Louis glass
XVfactory, worth, according to Argenson, thirty tho
discovered an interest they could share and mutually nour-sand livres in annual revenue.114 When, in 1757, the mo
ish. As such things go with lovers and dear friends,from prob-Vincennes was complete, the buildings of the glas
ably neither knew, in fact, exactly when or in which worksof were taken over for use by the porcelain factory
them the interest first became a passion. It is possiblePompadour,
that one assumes, was duly recompensed.
he would have supported the creation of French porcelain Thus far I have discussed Pompadour's role in the cr
ation
less vigorously if she had loved it less, and if that is so she of a French porcelain factory, but there remains t
may indeed have made an absolutely critical contribution question of the extent to which she contributed to the cre-
to one of the artistic glories of her time; but it is alsoation
pos-of a French porcelain style. I have already noted that
the was
sible that the mistress, for whom the king's pleasure original mandate of the company was to imitate Mei
paramount, would have devoted less of herself to itsen
if products
his and, until around 1751, for both shapes an
feeling for it had been less warm. decorations the Vincennes designers were mainly inspire
bywe
It is partly in the context of this shared passion that the practice of their Saxon rivals."- One naturally won-
should probably understand the factory's move fromders whether it was purely accidental that Pompadour
Vin-
cennes to Sevres, adjacent to Bellevue and convenient to
deepening involvement with the factory approximately co-
Versailles. It has long been thought that Pompadour ini- with an expansion of its artistic aims and with t
incided
gradual appearance of a distinct, French style. Of cours
tiated the move and gave or sold the company property
106 Eriksen-Bellaigue, 32. floraison des arts, exh. cat., David M. Stewart Museum, Montreal
1988, 112.)
107 Bachelier (p. 9) commented on the king's visits and dedicated interest.
110 Eriksen-Bellaigue, 35.
After the marchands-merciers as a group, Louis XV was the factory's prin-
cipal patron. (Dauterman, 87, 157.) See also n. 103 above. "1 Fa?-Hallk and Pr6aud, 9.
108 These began, however, only in 1758, although in 1754 the king publicly
112 Eriksen-Bellaigue, 35. There can be little doubt that Pompado
exhibited his newly acquired table service. (Ericksen-Bellaigue, 101-102.)
strongly urged the king to declare for this move. In 1754 the duc de Cro
M. Brunet and T. Preaud (Sevres, Des Origines a nos jours, Fribourg, attributed major responsibility to Pompadour for the factory's building
1978, 32) also stress the importance of the king's use of Sevres wares activity
for at Sevres. (1, 230-231.)
gifts of state.
113 Chavignac-Grollier, 137; Terrasson, 72-75.
109 They explain that J.-E de Verdun purchased the land for the company
114 vii, 69.
from a certain sieur de St.-Gilles, and that there is no reason to think the
latter was acting as Pompadour's agent. (Madame de Pompadour 11 et Eriksen-Bellaigue,
la 79ff.
no one would suggest that she regularly rode over from In 1754 or 1755, when Pompadour decided she could use
Bellevue to Sevres to supervise current production.116 Buta stock of "Friendship" emblems to distribute to the right
there are several ways in which her taste and ideals couldpeople on the right occasion,121 the idea of making them in
have effected the course of the stylistic development of Vin- the shape of expensive, Vincennes porcelain statuettes must
cennes-Sevres porcelain. have come naturally to her. She herself loved and collected
Pompadour was naturally in a position to recommend such objects; they would make impressive, precious gifts,
individual artists for employment at the factory, and alsoand combine an assertion of her position at court with tan-
specific works and types to be used as models for the shapes gible proof, in the form of the medium, of her dedication
and decoration of porcelains. It would have been hard notto the nation's cultural and economic interests. The factory,
to act on her suggestions, but it does not appear that shehowever, on receipt of her order for nineteen statuettes of
confronted the factory's management with them very often, Friendship, was faced with the problem of having no model
and only a few possible instances need be considered here.to work from and, as Bachelier indicates in a remark about
It is sometimes supposed that Pompadour urged the fac-the "kind of workers" he had at the time, no employee
tory to engage the flower, fruit, and animal painter Jean- capable of producing a satisfactory one.122 Clearly, it was
Jacques Bachelier,117 who in 1748 was put in charge of the necessary to go outside the factory to meet the require-
painting workshop, and soon after of the sculpture shop. ments of Pompadour's commission.
If so, there is the question of motive, since her distribution Falconet had been working for Pompadour in the early
of favors did not always depend on her recognition of merit. 1750s,123 and it is reasonable to imagine that she proposed
Still, it would have been one of the happiest uses of herthat he produce the Friendship. Certainly, one expects that,
influence on the arts, for the painter, only twenty-four at as its commissioner, she at least approved the choice of its
the time and not yet well known, soon became a driving creator. But Falconet was a particularly suitable choice, and
force in the creation of the new style of porcelain."18 The his name may have occurred to Bachelier or Van Hulst quite
supposition that Pompadour was responsible for his ap- independently of Pompadour. The sculptor was already
pointment cannot be ruled out, but Bachelier himself, inmaking designs and small-scale marble statuettes for the
his account of his years at Vincennes-Sevres, did not credit decorative arts market,124 and Bachelier, especially, would
her with any role in it,119 and it is at least as likely that he have recognized that Falconet was ideally suited to help
was hired at the suggestion of Van Hulst, the advisor tohim to realize his own recently formulated goals for por-
the factory, who would have known the artist through his celain sculpture.
association with the Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Glazed and painted porcelain sculpture had been pro-
Pompadour can only have endorsed the employment of duced at Vincennes from the late 1740s, but, because true,
two other artists whom she patronized, Boucher and Fal-or hard-paste, porcelain was not yet available in France,
conet, but claims such as that "she entrusted the effectiveit could not match the quality of similar Meissen wares.
direction [of the factory] to her two favorite artists"'20 Bachelier stated that in 1749 he proposed to make a virtue
greatly exaggerate her authority and mistake the nature of of a shortcoming simply by issuing finished statues in their
those artists' important but highly specialized and limitedbiscuit state, that is, fired but not glazed. Such works, he
contributions to the factory's work. Considering what Fal- reasoned, would have the appearance, and the natural
conet had achieved by 1757, special pleading from Pom-beauty and finesse, of white marble sculptures.125 This was
padour was probably not needed to secure his appointmenta revolutionary idea, and he had difficulty convincing the
in that year as director of the sculpture workshop (a postmanagement to approve it. Only about 1752 did the factory
he held until his departure for Russia in 1766). It is, in fact, begin producing such works for sale. Although they proved
by no means sure that it was she rather than one of the popular, their artistic success was hampered by the lack of
officers of the factory who proposed the appointment. suitable models and properly trained workmen to execute
However that may be, at least indirectly, credit belongs to them. Bachelier, in fact, explained that he used "some pas-
her for bringing Falconet into the French porcelain industry. toral ideas" by Boucher in part because they were fairly
116 In fact, production continued at Vincennes while factory buildings were 119 Bachelier did not explain how he came to work at the factory, but the
being constructed at Sevres. It was not until late 1756 that the transfer ofabsence of any mention of Pompadour seems significant, especially since
operations was mostly complete. Pompadour's visits to Vincennes andhe called attention to her influence in another connection. (See above,
Sevres are unrecorded and probably were not very numerous. She ap-n. 102.)
parently bought most of her porcelain conveniently in Paris (see n. 104).120 Reau, 1922, I, 257.
117 D. Sutton (France in the Eighteenth Century, exh. cat., Royal Acad-121 See above, p. 77.
emy, London, 1968, 44) even states without qualification that Pompadour
122 Bachelier, 24. See also Eriksen-Bellaigue, 89.
"selected him as director [of decoration]." More cautious writers, like
Dauterman (p. 170), suggest that "perhaps" Pompadour proposed him. 123 See below, p. 94f.
She evidently liked his work and owned about a dozen of his paintings,124 See below, n. 167.
but she may have acquired all of them after his appointment to Vincennes.
125 Bachelier, 20-21, for all references to his recollections in the present
118 Bachelier, who had been Pierre's student, was not agrbe at the Acad- context. For Vincennes sculptures in this period, see Eriksen-Bellaigue, 88-
emy until 1750. For his role in the history of French porcelain, see Eriksen- 90, and the literature cited there.
Bellaigue, 84-85, 87-88.
easy for his craftsmen to translate into porcelain. The com-

mission from Pompadour came at an opportune moment.
The decision, whoever took it, to invite Falconet to provide
the model was inspired; the beauty of the finished works
(Fig. 7),126 which suggests that they were supervised by Fal-
conet at all stages of production, fully demonstrated the
aesthetic potential of biscuit sculpture. The year 1755 marks
the beginning of the decisive change from glazed to biscuit
manufacture at Vincennes-Sevres.127 Perhaps a direct sug-
gestion from Pompadour led to Falconet's appointment as
director of sculpture in 1757, but by then it would have
been evident to everyone at the factory that a professional,
master sculptor was needed to guide its work, and that
Falconet was the logical man for the job. The painter Bach-
elier, who had supervised the sculpture studio until 1757,
commented that Falconet "introduced a more noble genre, All: :
and a taste that was more universal and less subject to the
inconstancy of fashion."
In truth, it was more through sculptural quality than a ... ..... gO:
new genre that Falconet lifted French porcelain to a new

Wk
artistic height. Under his direction, the sculpture studio

continued to produce pastoral subjects after designs by vs,::::::
Boucher, which as late as 1780 were still very popular.128

Unfortunately, there exists only fragmentary documenta-
tion about Boucher's association with Vincennes-Sevres,
and none relating to how it came about. The extreme view,
that "a Sivres la marquise a impose Boucher,"129 finds no
documentary substantiation.
On the factory's stocklist of 1752 are thirty-nine draw-
ings and prints by Boucher. They were only part of an
available stock of more than a thousand designs, including
works by Bachelier himself, Portail, Gillot, and Oudry, that
could be used as prototypes for decorations and sculp-
tures.130 But by that date, the list shows too, inventions by 7 Falconet, F
Boucher were strongly represented in the factory's sculp- Pierpoint M
ture stock, especially his Enfants (Fig. 8), which were issued
in three sizes to suit the needs and purses of individual buy- notion, and
ers.131 About this time special efforts must have been made without Pompadour's active intervention, one feels,
to acquire more Boucher designs; we know that he was paid Boucher would have been invited to work more actively
in 1754 and 1756 for large numbers of drawings that he for Vincennes. Bachelier explained that while he used
sent to the factory,132 and there is evidence to suggest that Boucher designs in part because they were easily worked,
he was engaged to design some figures or groups specifi- he had also chosen to reproduce them as statuettes (and as
cally for translation into porcelain statuary.133 paintings on other wares as well)134 because, he knew,
As so often in the story of Pompadour's patronage, we "nothing would be more pleasing to the public."135 Around
must allow the possibility that it was she who proposed 1750, and, indeed, long before, this would have been plainly
that increased use be made of the artist's talents and who evident from Boucher's great popularity in another art mar-
suggested particular works for reproduction. But, as soket, the commerce in reproductive prints after his works.136
often too, nothing that we know actually supports such Tamara
a Preaud has very reasonably supposed that Bouch-
126 In addition to the Wadsworth Atheneum, the museum at Sevres 132 Brunel, 254. G. de Bellaigue ("Sevres Artists and Their Sources," Bur-
owns one. lington Magazine, cxxII, 1980, 668, n. 15) estimated that he delivered
127 Fa?-Hallk and Preaud, 14. about 160 drawings in 1755. See also C. Dauterman, "Sevres Figure Paint-
ing in the Anna Thompson Dodge Collection," Burlington Magazine,
128 For brief accounts of Boucher's work at Vincennes-Sevres, see Brunel,
cxviII, 1976, 754, n. 3.
253-256, and A. Fa?-Halle, in Laing, 345-375.
133 Fay%-Hallk and Preaud, 14.
129 Terrasson, 104.
134 Figural decoration from 1752 to 1759 was dominated by designs based
130 Eriksen-Bellaigue, 86, 90.
on Boucher's works. Cf. Eriksen-Bellaigue, 97.
131 i. Bourgeois, Le Biscuit de Sevres au XVIIIe siecle,20.Paris, 1909, i, 18-
135 Bachelier,
20; II, 4.
136 See P. Jean-Richard, L'Oeuvre grave de Francois Boucher, Paris, 1978.
large in the inventory of her po

took in them, which she sur
friends, and the example she se
stimulated other buyers, increa
MI:
for these products, and therefor
. . . . .. . . .
termine production and mark
factory.
It is difficult to calculate the effects of this kind of influ-
ence. The main purchasers of Vincennes-Sevres porcelain
were dealers, the marchands-merciers. As a group they ac-
AT--: -:
counted for more than twice the income the factory got
-: : i-i~,,: ............ ---
from sales to the Crown, which was its most important

-:::iAl
individual patron.139 Then as now, it was the business of

dealers, who retailed their wares to people like Pompadour,
to know or guess what would sell. On the basis of their
:: :N -
knowledge of the market, they placed orders with the fac-

4w . ----: ::-: ---::-?- -:----:
tory, and some dealers, it appears, discussed its production
with management, thus exercising a degree of direct, as well
as indirect, influence on the developing character of French
porcelain.140 By the sheer quantity of her purchases, Pom-
padour's tastes, as expressed through the agency of her
:: :::: :: :- :: : :: :AM
dealerl41 if not otherwise, should have been given the most

. . .
serious attention by the factory. But this depends a little
...
.:% .. .. ...
on how exacting or original her tastes were.

km?!:
Relatively few specific pieces of porcelain that Pompa-

iAl
dour owned can be confidently identified today, and there
is uncertainty even about some of the types of pieces she
bought. This naturally limits our understanding of the
character of her tastes, but the sketchy picture we can form
of her activity as a buyer of porcelain, from her inventory
and from the sales accounts of the factory and of her
dealer,142 suggests that she was not as demanding as one
might imagine.
To put Pompadour's massive acquisitions of porcelain in
proper perspective, it should be remembered that the vast
majority of the more than two thousand pieces of French
porcelain she owned consisted of utilitarian objects, plates
and dishes, cups and saucers, water jugs and basins, even
chamber pots. They were not necessarily less beautiful for
being primarily functional, but their range of possible sty-
8 After Boucher, Young Girl with an Apron. New York, Metro-
listic variation was generally narrower than in ornamental
politan Museum of Art, Gift of R. Thornton Wilson, 1950, in
memory of Florence Ellsworth Wilson wares and naturally
(photo:centered Museum)
on their painted decoration.
Actually, half, if not more, of Pompadour's porcelain was
plain white ware, or white with a colored or gilded fillet.
er's personal involvement with Vincennes
By absolute was
standards these were mostly
luxurious pieces, but the
doing of Bachelier, his colleague most, at the Academy
on Pompadour's scale, probably wouldof have Paint-
been
ing and Sculpture.137 considered relatively modest wares bought to meet the
Once again, however, we must consider
"everyday" the
needs of her many indirect
households. From what we in-
fluence of Pompadour on decisions can tell, when made
she bought orat the
ordered paintedporcelain
products,
works. It is clear that she adored Pompadour Boucher's imagery,
was in no way an unusual or adventurous cus-and
porcelain wares that display it in tomer onein her form or another
choices of decorations. Floral motifs,figure
birds,
137 Fay-Hall6 and Preaud, 14. 141 Pompadour's main dealer before 1758, Lazare Duvaux, was from early
138 Terrasson, 39, 45. on closely associated with the factory. See ibid., 155, 157; Eriksen-Bel-
laigue, 35; Eriksen, 1974, 132-133.
139 Dauterman, 157.
140 Ibid. 142 For the following discussion, see esp. Terrasson, 38-46, 89-90. I am
also indebted to Ms. Rushfield's study (as in n. 104).
animals, cherubs, and ribbons enlivened her porcelains, padour's

as patronage really did help to shape the characte
of
they did most everybody else's. Most of all she liked flow-the factory's production. At her death she owned 26
ers,143 which have always been enormously popular. Blue,Vincennes-Sevres statuettes. The number is especially im
so much used in so many shades by the factory, was her pressive when it is compared to her holdings of vases an
favorite color, as it must have been for many other buy-similar ornamental porcelains, which totaled about sev
ers.144 All told, it does not appear that the factory had to
enty.148 Indeed, she must have acquired still more sculptur
make any special efforts to meet Pompadour's require- that she gave away as gifts. The magnitude of her purchase
ments for most of the porcelain she bought. of these extremely costly objects, plus those of the man
other customers who must have fashioned their taste on
Pompadour naturally also bought many ornamental
wares, as gifts as well as for her own use. Among the vases,her example, certainly accounted for no small part of the
factory's
jardinieres, pot-pourris, girandoles, and similar objects that sales of statuettes. We can be confident that in the
the factory produced are some of the most inventive mas- sculpture studio every effort was made to please her, and
it may even be that its artistic planning was largely centered
terpieces in the history of the ceramic arts. It is probable
that some of them were designed on commission fromonin- her preferences. One suspects that the factory's contin-
dividuals, and it may be that some commissioners exercised uing production of works after or in the manner of Boucher,
even after the directorship was entrusted to Falconet, whose
a degree of aesthetic supervision or even inspiration in their
making. It is impossible to say whether Pompadour ever aesthetic leanings were quite different from Boucher's, was
in part determined by Pompadour's enthusiasm in collect-
did so. There is, of course, the possibility that wares named
after her, like the pot-pourri Pompadour (Fig. 9), in some ing them. She was also a champion of biscuit sculpture,
way reflect her tastes and desires. But most objects evidently
des- recognizing its special merits soon after it was
ignated by the factory with the name of a specific patron introduced. In 1754, although she already owned a set of
or famous person probably received their names after they the Boucher Enfants in glazed porcelain (Fig. 8), she or-
were made, on their way to market, as it were. The names, dered another in biscuit;149 when she died all but about thirty
rather like dedications on prints, generally seem intended of the many French statuettes she owned were in that me-
merely to flatter a patron or to attract buyers by the dis-dium. One imagines that she was a powerful force, by her
purchases and by her advocacy, in establishing and de-
tinction of the appellation (e.g., pot-pourri a la dauphine).
Our knowledge of the origins and marketing of such pro- veloping the new ceramic type.
ductions is very incomplete,145 and we cannot even say Pompadour's great liking for statuettes, above all other
whether the person after whom an object was called was forms of porcelain, perhaps needs a word of explanation.
She was herself, as will be discussed, especially interested
usually its first recipient. But it is unlikely that Pompadour
had any significant role in the creation of the broc, pot- in, and an amateur practitioner of, small-scale sculpture in
pourri, and urne Pompadour, or that they were produced the form of gem cutting. But beyond this, I doubt that she
with the expectation that they would be more pleasing (ortovery many of her contemporaries) valued ordinary por-
her than similar forms. These were handsome, but not celain wares in the way she did sculptures. Except for the
grand, objects manufactured in several sizes, accordingly latter, ceramic objects have some kind of real or implicit
practical use. They are necessities in the daily business of
priced, and sold in fairly large quantities.146 The name ap-
pears to have been an advertising device. On the subject life and, in the common view, inferior just for being quo-
of ornamental wares we cannot really say more than that tidian. Porcelain statuettes are rare, gleaming white shapes
Pompadour purchased or was given a fair number of athat va- exist only to display their beauty and to boast of their
expense; they ornamented Pompadour's rooms and her
riety of choice porcelains, like the ravishing gondola-shaped
pot-pourri (Fig. 10) that appears to have been a present dining
to tables as her jewelry ornamented her person. They
her from Louis XV.147 Nothing we know, at present at least,said something about culture, status, and wealth that could
allows us to say that she favored or encouraged the pro- not be conveyed even by the most exquisite cups and sau-
duction of particular types or shapes. cers and pot-pourris, and they therefore justified a special
In the area of sculpture, however, one suspects that Pom-liberality and degree of exigency in their acquisition.
143 Relating to Pompadour's liking for flowers, the well-known story of 145 See the remarks in Eriksen-Bellaigue, 115.
how she "planted" scented porcelain flowers in the garden at Bellevue has 146 For these objects, see Fag-Hall6 and Pr6aud, 75, 93-94.
sometimes led biographers to imply that she was responsible for the fash-
147 Cf. C. Dauterman, et al., Decorative Art from the Samuel H. Kress
ion for using such artificial flowers. They were, however, already being
Collection at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London, 1964, 199-201,
manufactured at Vincennes in 1745, in imitation of the Meissen products,
no. 35. The king also gave her an example of the famous vaisseau a mat.
and were extremely popular in France. Pompadour's own interest in them
does not seem to have been great or exceptional. See Terrasson, 45-46, See G. Wilson, "Sevres Porcelain at the J. Paul Getty Museum," The J.
Paul Getty Museum Journal, iv, 1977, 5 and fig. 4.
86-87; Eriksen-Bellaigue, 61-63.
148 She also owned seventy-eight Meissen statuettes, as well as numerous
144 The pink color called "rose Pompadour" was not one she particularly
Oriental ceramic sculptures. Cf. Terrasson, 38-39.
liked (her inventory lists only nineteen pieces displaying it), and the name,
not used in France, seems to be an English invention. See Eriksen (as in Bourgeois (as in n. 131), 28.
149
n. 98), 31.
.-OW::~_;;~-_
Xek
9 Pot-pourri Pompadour. Sevres,

Sii :..:._ :iiiiiiii~ii~iiii ~iiiil
----:-:_-::- :..: -::::---_--_-__- :: .:
::: :- -: ::- :::.. -.- : i~ii~i--:-:-:-- :-::
Mus&e National de C6ramique :: ::::: :::: :: : :: : ::-:- - ::::::: --: -::::--::- :
(photo: Mushes Nationaux)

: :: - :::: :: : : :: - : : : - ::l
10 Gondola Pot-pourri. New ii i!!! !! i ii ii :!ii i?! !!i i iiii i
York, Metropolitan Museum of

Art, Gift of the Samuel H. Kress
Foundation, 1948 (photo: Museum)
Allowing for sculpture as a special case, as a consumer directly, was slight at best.
of porcelain Pompadour seems to have been the kind of
buyer every seller dreams about: rich, ready to make pur- Sculpture and Painting
chases on a grand scale, and, happy with the best of what Pompadour was constantly faced with the need to buy
was available, always able to find something on the shelves or order furnishings and decorations for her new houses or
that met her needs and desires. One suspects that, as in the for her old ones that, outfitted in yesterday's styles, wanted
case of her architectural patronage, Pompadour preferred updating. Furniture, decorative paneling, painted over-
the ready-made object to the shadowy artistic conception doors and tapestries, textiles for draperies, upholstery, her
that would need time and painstaking deliberation to re- own clothes and her servants' livery, statues for the gar-
alize. She seems to have insisted on being fashionable, up- dens, silverware and ceramics for the dining tables and else-
to-date, and, in the 1760s, when Neoclassic forms and dec- where - all of them necessities in her life, and all of them
orations had already begun to make their appearance at works of art. It is evident, from what we know she owned
Se'vres, she naturally acquired some examples of "modern" and from the picture of her surroundings seen in portraits
wares.150 From what little we know, we can say no more of her (Fig. 15), that such objects were chosen with an eye
than that she had no difficulty in accepting the new style, that was exquisitely attuned to quality. Except for ceramics,
but that it is unlikely that she was one of its originators or however, it has never been suggested that she played a role
determined promoters at Sevres.151 in the history of the decorative arts comparable to the one
It appears certain that the porcelain factory depended attributed to her, in the so-called major arts. Although fur-
heavily on Pompadour's custom, as it depended on her po- ther research into these areas of her patronage might prove
litical support and her public promotion of its products. It her to have been more deeply concerned with some of them
is possible, in fact, that but for her efforts it would not than we now know, it seems likely that, as in the case of
have survived, or at least not have blossomed into the great most of her porcelain acquisitions, she was generally sat-
artistic enterprise it became. But it seems equally certain isfied to buy the best of what was available on the high-
that, sculpture excepted, her contribution to its aesthetic fashion market.152
vision, and her influence on its artistic decisions, even in- It has recently been proposed that Pompadour was per-
150 Cf. Eriksen-Bellaigue, 103-104, 130, 323-324. Well into the late 1760s a Rococo style dominated in the royal buildings,
151 For a discussion of the introduction of the Neoclassic style at Sevres, changing only in the Petit Trianon, but then, too late to have been influ-
see Eriksen, 1974, 110-113, where no role is assigned to Pompadour. Erik- enced by Pompadour. See Eriksen, 62; Kalnein, 324.
sen, however, believes that Pompadour exerted a significant influence on 152 Pompadour may have had an especially strong interest in furniture,
the general development of Neoclassicism (pp. 116-117, 216), but the evi- but whether she was just an astute and well-informed buyer or a leader
dence he cites seems to me inconclusive, mainly restricted to pieces of in making fashion in that field remains unclear. See last note; also F. Wat-
furniture she owned and to the fact that she knew people who were com- son, "A Note on French Marquetry and Oriental Lacquer," The i. Paul
mitted to the style. She certainly did not exert an influence in the direction Getty Museum Journal, Ix, 1981, 159-160, 162.
of Neoclassicism on official, Court taste in matters of interior decoration.
sonally more inventive as a creator of artistically signifi-

observer finds surprising.155 Furthermore, Pompadour and
cant "total environments" for herself than we have thus farmost of her contemporaries valued invention more highly
been able to appreciate.153 This is possible, but one must than execution, the artistic personality of the designer more
note that we do not even know to what extent she herself than of the craftman who turned the conception into a fin-
actually supervised the furnishing and refurnishing of her ished work of art.156 The executants of groups of works like
houses and gardens. It is not at all unlikely that she charged the Crecy figures, given the valid assumption that they were
others, dealers or advisors, her brother at the Batiments, all highly skilled, could, to a certain extent, be viewed as
people who knew quality and current fashions, to select or anonymous, or at least interchangeable. A mere list of the
recommend a great deal of what she bought. She was, after artists who worked for Pompadour, which includes almost
all, a busy woman. all the distinguished sculptors of her age, does not, there-
It seems reasonable to assume that Pompadour's acqui- fore, indicate the nature of her tastes in art or reflect her
desire to champion a given artist or style. Indeed, it may
sitions of sculpture and painting, in view of her supposedly
powerful influence in those fields, commanded her most be argued that to patronize everyone is tantamount to pa-
tronizing no one.
active participation, but this was not always true. The com-
mission of 1753 for four life-size statues to decorate the Of course Pompadour must have given her personal and
"dairy" that she had constructed at her chateau at Crecy, continued attention to the creation of many of the works
for example, seems to have been arranged and carried out she commissioned, and she must have acted independently
with at most only minimal involvement on her part. Her in making many purchases. She knew what she liked and
brother Marigny took charge of the project for her, and when she felt strongly about something she acted deci-
Bernard L(epici&, Secretary of the Royal Academy, was as- sively. It is possible that she was responsible for saving, at
signed to supervise it. Designs for the statues were made least for France, a masterpiece by Bouchardon, the Cupid
by the painter Boucher and, one guesses, were approved Testing a Bow Being Cut from the Club of Hercules (Fig.
by Pompadour. But Lepicie proposed the sculptors (Fal-11) that had been commissioned by the king in 1740. When
conet, Allegrain, Coustou, Vass6) to execute them, and his it was completed in 1750, the sculptor declared his prom-
correspondence with Marigny indicates that his suggestions ised fee inadequate and announced that an Englishman was
and the final decisions did not require submission to Pom- prepared to buy it for twice what the Batiments offered.157
padour. The primary consideration in the selection process, In addition to the problem of payment, the statue's future
it should be noted, was less the sculptors' personal artistic
was threatened by the fact that it was very negatively re-
qualities than the likelihood that they would complete the ceived by the Court when it was installed in the Salon
work in the time allotted for it.14 d'Hercule at Versailles. The king himself disliked it and
The Cr&cy commission reflects aesthetic perceptions of would not tolerate it at Versailles. Pompadour, however,
the time that must be taken into consideration in assessing was among the small group of people, mostly artists and
Pompadour's patronage of sculpture, and in fact of paint- amateurs, who admired it. It may be that she was influ-
ing too. A good deal of the artwork made for her and others enced by men like Pigalle, whom she was already patron-
might be classed as "utilitarian-ornamental," decorative ne- izing, but she was in any case so convinced of the statue's
cessities for house and garden that needed to be well crafted, merits that only six months after its completion she com-
but that, as part of the overall "environment," were not missioned a copy from Bouchardon for the bosquet de
necessarily expected to be viewed very closely or seriously. l'Amour at her newly built residence at Bellevue.15s One
On the scale of aesthetic importance, such objects, beau- imagines that the financial satisfaction finally given the
tiful though they may have been, did not have great weight sculptor and the decision in 1752 to move the statue to the
and were often treated with an insouciance that the modern Orangerie at the royal chateau of Choisy was in part due
153 Danielle Rice claims that Pompadour herself conceived and supervised they were never sent there and simply stored for decades. See J. Phillips,
the execution of her physical environments, making of them "compre- "The Choisy-M6nars Vases," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin,
hensive works of art." ("Women and the Visual Arts," in Spencer, 246.) xxv, 1967, 243-250.
This unsubstantiated assertion should be considered in the light of the 156 As Levey has stressed (p. 36), this attitude worked particularly to the
conclusion Biver reached in his study of Bellevue (p. 140): "Pompadour disadvantage of sculptors, who were frequently made to work from the
a d6cor6 et meubl6 Bellevue avec un richesse inouie. Gardons nous, ce- designs of painters.
pendant, d'attribuer A ses choix une originalite quelconque."
157 Memoires inkdits de Charles-Nicolas Cochin, ed. C. Henry, Paris, 1880,
154 On 5 July 1753 only two sculptors had been selected, and the desired 88-89. See further, on the history and reception of the statue, La Statue
completion date was 1 September of the same year. (In fact, all the statues
equestre de Louis XV. Dessins de Bouchardon (LIle Exposition du Cabinet
were finished by early October.) L6picie wrote to Marigny that he had des Dessins, Musee du Louvre), Paris, 1973, 20-21. The relevant docu-
thought of Michel-Ange Slodtz for one of the statues, but decided that ments are published in M. Furcy-Raynaud, Inventaire des sculptures ex-
the sculptor was so busy with other work that he could not be depended
ecuties au XVIIe siecle pour la direction des Badtiments du Roi (Archives
on to complete this commission on time. See R6au, 1922, i, 166-168, and de lArt Francais, xIv), Paris, 1927, 49-55.
Pompadour et la floraison des arts (as in n. 109 above), 91-92.
158 It appears that the copy was never made. At Bellevue Pompadour
155 An interesting parallel to the Cr6cy statues is the set of four great
decided, with obvious symbolic intent, that the bosquet de l'Amour was
marble vases carved at considerable expense in the 1740s by Pigalle and to be occupied, not by a cupid, but by Pigalle's statue of her as "Amitie"
others after designs by Gabriel. Made for the king's gardens at Choisy, (Fig. 2).
served to
contempo
Pigalle, b
works he
chief sculp
first comm
i~i:?:ii . ii -.. ..... . ...:
!iiii iii~ i ' ......... ? .... .....:n .........i ..... portrait n
and in th
Louis XV,
him (Fig.
she was n
missioned
duction an
.. ...
artistic ch
--': : :-iiiiiiiiii -iii-:iiiii -:,ii3 ;iiiii:
masterpie
sculpture
:24
Pigalle wa
ister of w
Pompadou
Q: N ,s::::.
: - -i iiiiiiiiiiiiii!iiiiii~iiii iiii she began
iii-iiiiiiii-iiiii -::iii - iiiiii ?!-i : B-5B
had alread
already d
i~iN:
cury that
who insta
destrian s
for his o
4 Is; .......... ...
Pigalle wa
She had t
::A".
i:.-
IX
::M
e
to act on i
ii- :R.
on occasio
commissi
::44
doing tha
In the cas
work he d
vancing h
beginning
11 Bouchardon, Cupid
herself re
of Hercules. Paris,
about Lo
nou
sion, for F
to him by
to her intervention
design by
remembered and that
it isth
p
something to Pompa
sculptor J
It is true Falconet
that Pomp
all the leading scul
that the artist exhibited in 1748 had considerable critical
this fact success,164
in and that itself
probably led to the decision to com- w
dominant force
mission him in
in 1750 to carve the life-size Music for Pom-
years of the
padour's Bellevue (Fig. 13),centur
a pendant to the Poetry by the
Pigalle and Falcone
well-established L.-S. Adam, and to include him two years
159 See above, n. 11. 163 R6au (1950, 24, 52, 87) suggests that Pompadour, acting through Mar-
160 A claim made by Levey, 77. igny, influenced the government's decision to give the commissions for
the Mar6chal de Saxe tomb and for the statue of Louis XV in the Place
161 For the bust, see 0. Raggio, "Two Great Portraits by Lemoyne and
Royale of Reims to Pigalle. This is possible, but there is no reason to think
Pigalle," The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, xxv, 1967, 222-229;
that the commissions would not have gone, without any urgings from
for the "Friendships," n. 15 above.
Pompadour, to Pigalle, who was declared by Grimm in 1751 to be "n6tre
162 See R6au, 1950, 23-25; J.-R. Gaborit, Jean Baptiste Pigalle. Sculptures
premier sculpteur apres Bouchardon." (R6au, 123.)
du Mus e du Louvre, Paris, 1985, 8-10.
164 R6au, 1922, I, 152-153.
later in the group of sculptors charged to execute the statues

for the Crecy "dairy." Pompadour herself seems to have
paid for the Music, but it was commissioned, like the Crecy
group, through the Batiments,165 and it is entirely possible
that she had little to do with the proposal to have Falconet
execute it.
The fact that it was not until 1755 that another major
work for Pompadour was commissioned from Falconet, the
Menacing Cupid, must raise questions about the depth of ........ .. .:;::::::
her appreciation and interest in him before then. By 1755,

however, the artist had achieved wide recognition,166 and
it required no special insight to chose to patronize him. But
if Pompadour was not particularly quick to appreciate the
sculptor's potential for monumental sculpture, it may be
.:. ---:::--::::-,--:-:-:iiiii_-:-i:..::,:...... ......... ...:.::.
:--::---:-::_-:::::-;:-:::-Av-:
....... .
that she was, however, one of the first to perceive his gift 10. HEiiiia~~~i~iii i -
for the creation of small-scale statuary. Apparently Fal-

?1.0-~iiii-i~iiiiiiiii
conet began to produce statuettes, decorative works for
interiors that would have been sold through dealers, as early
as 1750.167 Possibly Pompadour acquired some examples of
them, although this cannot be demonstrated.
Falconet also seems to have made models for decorative
bronze and silversmith work, and there is evidence that in
1755 Pompadour bought a silver saltcellar and a pepper-
box decorated with figures designed by the sculptor.168 Thus,
it seems entirely possible that she suggested that Falconet
design the porcelain Friendship (Fig. 7) for her.
The problems concerning the beginnings of Falconet's as-
sociation with Sevres have been discussed above,169 where
I have indicated that Pompadour must surely be given some
credit for opening the way to what was to prove a partic-
ularly fruitful activity for the artist. It should, however, be
remembered that Falconet's work for Sevres constitutes a
relatively modest contribution to the larger history of
French sculpture of the eighteenth century. Whatever de-
gree of responsibility for it we assign to Pompadour, in 12 Pigalle, Madame de Pompadour. New York, Metropolitan
itself it allows us to attribute to her patronage only a cor- Museum of Art, Jules S. Bache Collection, 1949 (photo:
respondingly modest role in that history. Museum)
Another, debatable, question concerns Pompadour's
possible role in shaping one of the two main currents in that it was the artist's response to the climate of aesthetic
Falconet's art. It has been suggested that the influence of ideas at the time, rather than to particular patrons, that
Pompadour accounts for the restrained Rococo style that led him to his "classicizing" Rococo style.172
characterizes the Menacing Cupid, the Friendship, and But could Pompadour, so often thought a proponent of
many of his other works.170 This is a style that many critics Neoclassic currents in art, have served as one of the agents
have seen as less true to Falconet's natural instincts than for the transmission of such ideas to the artist? The like-
the dramatic Baroque style of his early Milo of Crotona lihood that she did is negated by a curious fact that Levitine
and of his late Peter the Great.'171 But Pompadour was not was moved to note: "There is no evidence that the Mar-
the only patron for whom Falconet worked in his Rococo quise de Pompadour had ever spoken to Falconet."173 Surely,
manner, and it seems impossible to demonstrate that she, she must have spoken to him on occasion; but what makes
or her commissions, specifically inspired it. Georges Le- the total absence of evidence for conversation between them
vitine, Falconet's most recent biographer, has concluded noteworthy is that no artist of the period was less inhibited,
165 Ibid., 157. 168 Reau, 1922, I, 246-247.

169 Cf. above, p. 88f.
166 In 1753 he was commissioned to design the tomb of the wife of La Live
de Jully in St. Roch, and immediately after to undertake extensive sculp-
170 R6au, 1922, I, 73.
tural work in the same church. Probably in 1755 his Bather was com-
171 I.e., Levey, 77, 83-85, who also believes that Falconet's career was
missioned by the amateur of modern French sculpture, Thiroux d'Esper-
sennes. (Cf. ibid., I, 195.) "seriously affected, indeed diverted" by Pompadour's patronage.
172 (As in n. 167, above), chap. iii.
167 Ibid., I, 235-240; G. Levitine, The Sculpture of Falconet, Greenwich,
CT, 1970, 43-45. 173 Ibid., 14.
rienc
that she had "neither the time nor the talent to cultivate"
the arts.174
: :
:: : As a patron of contemporary French painting, Pompa-

dour was no more adventurous than as a patron of sculp-
ture. She could afford and had access to the best, and, for
example, when she outfitted Bellevue with decorative
paintings around 1750 she gave the major share of work
to FranCois Boucher, Carle Vanloo, and Jean-Baptiste
Oudry,175 all famous and at the height of their careers at
the time. Works by them and many other artists were in
her various houses and appear in the inventory of her pos-
sessions, but as with sculpture a list of names by itself does
not tell us a great deal about her tastes. And, as with com-
missions for sculpture for her, it is frequently unknown
whether she or the authorities at the Batiments selected the
artists who produced the paintings for given projects.
Presumably, however, Pompadour would have chosen
the subjects and the artists who created such pictorial en-
sembles for the rooms she lived in as the "Four Seasons"
by Boucher (Fig. 14), or the suite of the "Visual and Literary
Arts" that Carle Vanloo painted for Bellevue (Fig. 6).176 But,
to take Vanloo's suite as an example, it does not appear
that she followed the progress of the work after it was com-
missioned. As with the Crecy "dairy" project, Bernard Le-
picie supervised its production and reported to Marigny,
and neither man apparently felt it was necessary to consult
Pompadour. Lepicie, in fact, did not even mention her when

assuring Marigny that Vanloo's work will merit "votre
approbation."177
Evidently, when it was of some personal importance to
her, Pompadour herself specified the artist to carry out a
task. Such was the case when she wanted some miniature
portraits of Louis XV made for her. She requested, through
- :::
Marigny, that Louis-Michel Vanloo make a bust portrait

: : :: -
of the king (based on the State portrait he had already made)
that could be used as a model by the miniaturists.178 For
:i:
:: :..
other commissions, however, even fairly important ones

from an art-historical point of view, Pompadour was con-
-:' : : - : :,: :_-::
- ::.
?,
tent to allow surrogates to make decisions for her.
It must be remembered that to a large extent in eight-
:::
:::_i:
:-:::: : :::: ::
::
eenth-century France art was still considered a commodity

13 Falcone
like any other, and it was the official business of the Bai-
timents to arrange for and supervise its production for the
and government and members of the court. In 1752, when the
more
thetics th
queen of France wanted a painting of the Magdalene in the
Desert for an oratory she had had constructed at Com-
correspon
whopiigne, shewas
informed Marigny. He, in turn, informed the
pared
king's Premier Peintre and theto
director of the Royal Acad-
displayed
emy, Coypel, suggesting, in view of the importance of the
174 See the epigraph to this article. see P. Rosenberg and M.-C. Sahut, Carle Vanloo, Nice, 1977, nos.
123-128.
175 See Biver, 30-68.
176 For the "Seasons," see Catalogue of the Frick Collection, New York, 177 See M. Furcy-Raynaud, Correspondance de M. de Marigny avec Coy
1968, ii, 24-33. It is not known where these pictures were installed. Forpel, Lepicid et Cochin (Archives de lArt Francais, xix), Paris, 1904, 2
27, 49.
Vanloo's paintings, which were in the Cabinet de Compagnie at Bellevue,
178 Ibid., 4.
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Frick Collection (copyright Frick
Collection) 2
commissioner, that Coypel himself execute it. But more im- when she was shown the finished works.182 But Pompadour
portant than the executant was speed. The picture "abso- did not become one of Vien's patrons. She never again had
lutely" had to be finished and on its altar before the arrival him make a painting for her,183 and, significantly in view
of the Court on its next visit to Compiegne. If Coypel could of her putative interest in Neoclassical trends, she never
not manage it himself, Marigny authorized him to select acquired any of the "scenes A la grecque" that he began
another painter, anyone he thought capable as long as he producing about 1760.
could meet the deadline.179 Pompadour had many opportunities to direct or con-
In the same year, 1752, Pompadour decided she wanted tribute to the development of French painting of her time,
three pictures for the church of Cr6cy. It was a commission but she seized none of them. Joseph Vernet was a "pro-
of some consequence, since she and the rich and powerful gressive" artist in whom she might have shown special in-
visitors to her chateau at Crecy would naturally see the terest. Marigny and his traveling companions, who visited
pictures. But she was not sufficiently interested in it to give Vernet in Rome, were very enthusiastic about his work.
any thought to who might execute it. Her brother could do Pompadour did, in fact, on someone's suggestion (Ma-
that. Marigny, in fact, wrote to Lepicie, describing the size rigny's, I suspect), order two pictures from the artist in 1750
and subjects180 of the works wanted, and left the choice of through her brother. They were to decorate the king's
the artist, or artists, to him. L6picie selected Joseph-Marie apartment at Bellevue. When she got them, she commented
Vien, "a young man," he told Marigny, "who has much that they had succeeded very well, but were very expen-
promise and who ought to be encouraged."181 sive. That was the limit of her personal patronage of the
The commission helped considerably to advance Vien's artist.'1 She somehow came into possession of two fine
official career, and Pompadour was apparently pleased Chardins, but only after 1761, very late in her life and in
179 Ibid., 7. prints Pompadour executed, but this was very minor work and it is pro
able that it was assigned to Vien at the suggestion of Cochin or Bouche
180 Two oval paintings were to represent Saint John the Baptist and Saint
rather than of Pompadour herself. See ibid., 22, and below, p. 102 on t
tloi. The subject of the third and largest picture, so long as it portrayed
Suite d'estampes.
a "religious mystery," was left to the choice of the artist, who decided on
184 For Pompadour's commission and reception of the pictures, see M
a Visitation. (See next note.) Only the ovals are known to survive, still
in the church at Crecy. (See below, n. 182.) lassis, 51, 63, 76. They appear in her inventory at death. (Cordey, 8
no. 1160.) Two other paintings by Vernet, recorded as being at Bellev
181 Furcy-Raynaud (as in n. 177), 11, 13, 17, 19.
in 1779 (Biver, 52), were probably replacements made after Pompado
182 See T. Gaehtgens and J. Lugand, Joseph-Marie Vien, Paris, 1988, 22, removed her paintings and other furnishings when she sold the chatea
146-147.
to the king in 1757.
183 Vien was later employed to make some drawings in preparation for
the painter's career, and that hardly indicates special ap-

ningly pretty imagery that can transform the environment
preciation for one of the geniuses of her age.185 In 1756 Ma-
in which it appears. Probably more than any other painter,
rigny, anxious to boost Greuze's career, and apparentlyBoucheron benefited from Pompadour's patronage, and pos-
his own initiative, arranged to have the artist make two terity has benefited to the extent that it gave us such mas-
terpieces as the Rising of the Sun (Fig. 3). But it cannot be
small pictures for his sister's apartment at Versailles.186 If
she liked them, she did not so signal by any later, personal argued that Pompadour was in any way responsible for
Boucher's style, since it was full ripe by the time she met
acts of patronage. She left it to others to support and debate
Greuze's art. him. If anything, one must note that her support of the
At no point in the history of her patronage of painting artist ran counter to a growing current of criticism that
does Pompadour appear truly insightful or fired by critical began in the late 1740s, against the artificiality and sup-
enthusiasm. The fact is that she was just much less inter- posed shallowness of his work. But one should not imagine
ested in contemporary painting than most of her modern that Pompadour's patronage of Boucher (which testifies to
biographers have supposed. Eighteenth-century commen- her enduring fondness for a Rococo idiom, at least in paint-
tators on art are silent concerning her tastes and opinions. ing) was the mainstay of the artist's career in the decades
Even the author of a "Discourse on Painting and Archi- that he worked for her. Despite growing criticism, Boucher
tecture" sycophantically dedicated to Pompadour could was till the end of his life amply employed by patrons be-
find nothing more substantial to say about her involvement sides Pompadour.193
in the arts than that among her pleasures are "the charms The commissions Pompadour gave to Boucher did, of
and the graces [of painting and architecture]."1'7 Falconet's course, contribute heavily to a private demand for his work,
judgment seems confirmed. which enabled him to distance himself more and more from
The proof of how modest Pompadour's feelings for, and confrontation with public criticism, and which also shifted
commitment to, painting actually were is in what she ac- the emphasis of his production more decisively toward pas-
quired, or rather, in what she did not acquire. The reader toral and related imagery and away from history painting.
must be referred for details to Jean Cordey's analysis of the But Pompadour's patronage was only one of the factors
inventory made of Pompadour's possessions after her involved in the evolution of Boucher's late career, and there
death, from which three striking facts emerge:188 first, al- is no reason to think that she was instrumental in setting
though she owned a great many pictures, Pompadour had its course.
no "galleries," no "cabinets" devoted to the display of art,189 There was, however, one aspect of Pompadour's em-
in short, no "collection" of pictures in the usual sense of ployment of Boucher that was decidedly original and, con-
that word; second, she was not interested in "old masters" sidering some of its results, positively inspired. She com-
and acquired almost nothing but contemporary French pic- missioned at least eight portraits of herself from him, which
tures,"19 and she did so, I might add, without any apparent is more than by any other artist who portrayed her - La
controlling critical principles; finally, portraits excepted, Tour, Liotard, Nattier, Vanloo, among them. On the face
almost all the paintings she owned were intended primarily of it, this is surprising, because Boucher had not painted
to serve ornamental purposes.191 Cordey's conclusion seems many portraits before and he was not, in fact, gifted at
to me indisputable: "One cannot therefore suppose that seizing likenesses. Furthermore, after he made a portrait of
Mme. de Pompadour loved painting for itself, that she her in 1750, Pompadour did not again commission one un
sought to exercise the least influence on its evolution. She til 1756, perhaps because the earlier work, as she told her
saw in it only an indispensable element for the decoration brother, was "very pretty" but did not much resemble her.194
of her apartments.'"192 In 1756 she had need of a large, "official" image to mark
The primacy of decorative function in Pompadour's view the final elevation of her status at court on the occasion of
of painting explains why her favorite painter was Boucher, her appointment that year as a supernumerary lady-in-
whose greatness consists precisely in the creation of stun- waiting to the queen.195 We do not know why she gave the
185 See P. Rosenberg, Chardin, exh. cat., Grand Palais, Paris, 1979, 249, played no pictures. It was paneled and it incorporated decorative paint-
no. 79. Whatever interest she had in Chardin seems mainly to have been ings of flower garlands and some works by Boucher. (Biver, 56-57.)
satisfied by a number of prints she owned after some of his genre paint- 190 She owned virtually no old or foreign masterworks. At a time when
ings. Cordey, 87, nos. 1189, 1191-94, 1197. Netherlandish 17th-century pictures were all the rage in Paris, she had
186 Marigny, who commissioned the pictures, wrote: "Je [NB not his sister] only three copies after Rembrandt and three still lifes by Snyders. Among
luy laisse la liberte de son genie pour choisir le sujet qu'il voudra." He not-so-old French masters, Watteau, Pater, and Lancret are notable for
went on to say that in Pompadour's apartment they will be seen by the their absence.
whole court, which could be of great advantage to the artist. See E. Mun- 191 Cordey noted (p. xii) that numerous paintings are listed in the inven-
hall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze, exh. cat., Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, tory as being unframed and "contourn&e" in shape, that is, they must
1976, 68, no. 24. have been made to be set into decorative wall paneling.
187 Du Perron, Discours sur la peinture et I'architecture, Paris, 1758, iv. 192 P. Xiii.
Du Perron's substantive flattery was directed at Marigny, the "new Col-
193 See Locquin (as in n. 29), 177-178, and Brunel, 267-288.
bert," who was completing the Louvre (p. 36).
194 Malassis, 50, 55. For the portrait of 1750, see Laing, 252-255, no. 59.
188 Pp. xii-xiii.
195 Laing (267-269, no. 64) is to be credited for making the connection
189 The so-called "Petit Cabinet," also called "la Galerie," at Bellevue, dis-
between Pompadour's appointment and the Munich portrait.
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task to Boucher. We can only guess that somehow, of aristocratic self-confidence, and better,
of absolute contentment.
considering the options, she intuited that his winsome man- This proud display of content-
ner, the rosy way he perceived the world,ment was wasuniquely
at once a reassurance, for herself, and for those
suited to capture the persona she wished to who loved her,
present toandthe
a disdainful gesture to her detractors
and enemies.
public.
The great portrait of 1756 (Fig. 15) is much more than However she had come to commission the picture, Pom-
a gorgeous and flattering depiction of Pompadour, al- padour recognized that it was superlative achievement, and
though it is ravishing and it certainly does flatter, making in the next years she commissioned other portraits from
her appear younger, prettier, and healthier than we know Boucher (Fig. 21), some of which are of great quality, al-
she was in reality.196 Pompadour is presented, flanked by though none attain the level of the masterpiece of 1756.197
draperies parted like theater curtains, in a dress of extraor- Boucher himself, except in the service of Pompadour, was
dinary richness. In a shimmer of light and color, amidst never very active as a portraitist, and this aspect of her
great luxury and the attributes of high culture, which are patronage must be considered an eccentric, if inspired, ex-
almost negligently placed about her, she is totally at ease. ercise, which had no larger implications for Boucher's ca-
196 Cf. J.G. Prinz von Hohenzollern, "Die Portrits der Marquise de Bag- 1758, is misprinted in Brunel as 1750. See also, concerning the iconog-
lion und der Marquise de Pompadour," Pantheon, xxx, 1972, 308. raphy of this portrait, E. Goodman-Soellner, "Boucher's Madame de Pom-
padour at her toilette," Simiolus, xvii, 1987, 41-58.
197 Cf. Brunel, 244-247, who casts doubt, unnecessarily I think, both on
the attribution and the identification of the sitter of our Fig. 21. Its date,
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16 Pompadour (after Boucher), Child with a Marmot Box,

etching (photo: New York Public Library)
17 Boucher, The Beautiful Country Woman. Pasadena, Norton

Simon Collection (photo: Norton Simon Collection)
reer or for the history of French painting.
Printmaking and Gem Cutting

In the years around 1750 Boucher and inated
Cochin in a painting
gave that Mme.
Boucher made about 1735 (Fig.
de Pompadour some lessons in printmaking. Such
17).198 But Pompadour's tastelessons
for cute and sentimental de-
were an occasional leisure activity, the results
pictions of which,
of children evidently outweighed any interest she
although interesting to us historically, may
dohave
nothad inspeak for
exploring, in the actany
of printmaking, the
real creative ability on Pompadour's linear
part. All
tensions her prints
and luministic sparkle of Boucher's more
reproduce works by others; she nevermature
once seems
and finer to have
productions.
attempted to put an invention of her own The on
technique of these prints,
a copper clumsy and hesitant, re-
plate.
Furthermore, only eight of her seventy known
veals the hand of prints show
a beginner, a class from which Pompa-
more than a rudimentary interest in the
dour pictorial character
never graduated. But she lacked the inclination to pur-
of the medium. sue a course of study in printmaking and put her hand only
In 1751 she signed and dated three prints that she made to five other comparable prints. "Put her hand" is surely
after designs by Boucher. They represent little ragamuffins, the right phrase, because those prints show an expertise
one seen blowing bubbles, two others drinking milk, and (Fig. 20) that cannot be attributed to the same artist who
another, a seated "Savoyard" with his performing marmot made the prints of the street urchins. As is generally rec-
in the box beside him, awaiting a customer (Fig. 16). They ognized, they are works in which she collaborated in some
are perhaps a little surprising insofar as they go back to very modest way with master printmakers in her entourage
types and forms that date from some two decades earlier who gallantly allowed her to take greater credit for them
in Boucher's work and that are certainly not among his than she could in justice have claimed.199
most inspired inventions. The Savoyard child, in fact, orig- In fairness to Pompadour, she did not pretend to any
198 This print and the Children Drinking Milk are actually copies of orig- but probably mostly worked by Boucher, see Jean-Richard (as in n. 198),
inal prints by Boucher around 1735. See P. Jean-Richard, L'Oeuvre grave 356, 364. Three other prints of mythological subjects were engraved by
de Francois Boucher, Paris, 1978, 25-26. The Child Blowing Bubbles (il- Pompadour, according to the 1782 edition of the Suite d'estampes (pp.
lustrated in Pompadour et la floraison des arts [as in n. 109], 81, fig. 136B) 64-66), from drawings prepared by Eisen after ivory reliefs she owned.
must be based on a drawing by Boucher. One print from this group is conveniently illustrated in F.H. Taylor, The
199 For our Fig. 20 and the illustration to Corneille's Rodogune, signed Taste of Angels, Boston, 1948, after p. 384.
"Grav ~a l'eau forte par Mme. de Pompadour. Retouche' par C.N. Cochin,"
great talent as a printmaker. In her lifetime she had only

a very small number of impressions made of her prints and
she gave them only to friends.200 She seems to have taken
up the medium, in fact, not because of any aspirations to
become an amateur artist in the usual sense of that term,
but mainly to acquire enough skill in reproductive print-
making to become the leading participant in an extraor- :ilr
dinary enterprise she conceived: the production of an il-
lustrated catalogue of the cameos and intaglios of Jacques
Guay.
Around 1740 Jacques Guay,201 after an apprenticeship
with a jeweler, worked for a time in Boucher's shop. Ap-
ii
parently he was inspired to begin practicing the glyptic art
from his acquaintance with Pierre Crozat's collection of
ancient cut gemstones. His gifts were quickly recognized,
and, after a brief period of study in Italy, he was named
the king's Engraver of Precious Stones when that position
became vacant in 1745. It is not known how he met Pom-
padour, but it is possible that he was introduced to her by
his former teacher Boucher, and it is likely that he met her
soon after she herself joined the court in 1745.
Pompadour became Guay's main patron. She acquired
a collection of his gems which, bequeathed to the king at
her death, was valued at four hundred thousand livres.202
The works she commissioned from him range in subject
from portraits to commemorative historical images to al-
legories and genre subjects. She was, however, not merely 18 Gua
Jacquiot)
a consumer of Guay's works. She was his protector, his
champion, his student, and, in a certain sense, his historian.
In 1748 Guay was received as a member of the Royal and the arts administration, he worked rarely and without
Academy of Painting and Sculpture. Never before had a acclaim.205
gem cutter been so honored. In the seventeenth and eight- For Pompadour Guay's craft had a fascination possessed
eenth centuries carving and engraving gems was considered by no other form of the visual arts. It was not enough to
a craft, not an art, and its practitioners could not, there- own his works and to watch as they were created. She
fore, become academicians. The exception made for Guay learned how to use his tools and, under his supervision,
was evidently engineered by Tournehem,203 and, consid- she carved or engraved a number of stones herself, like
ering the history of Pompadour's patronage of the artist, Faithful Friendship (Fig. 19), an intaglio that Guay himself
he must have been acting at the instigation of his niece. certified as made almost entirely by Pompadour.206 And
Guay's academic status made it possible for him to exhibit finally, she had the idea of making a suite of prints after
his works at the Salons, thus calling wide attention to mas- Guay's gems.
terpieces like the portrait of Louis XV cut from a three- We do not know exactly when or how the idea came to
colored sardonyx (Fig. 18) that was made on the order of her, but the purpose of Pompadour's Suite d'estampes ...
the king and shown at the Salon of 1755. For its size (97 x d'apres les pierres gravies de Guay seems clear. It is not a
22mm, including the setting), the perfection of the stone, catalogue of her own collection, although she owned many
and the quality of workmanship, it has always been con- of the gems pictured, and, as a "suite," it has no theme in
sidered the most beautiful cameo made in modern times.204 terms of the subjects represented on the gems. It accords
For all his powers, Guay's reputation as an artist must best with a publication like Jean de Jullienne's volumes of
have depended heavily, and perhaps primarily, on Pom- prints issued in the 1720s after drawings by Watteau. That
padour's ability to maintain it. After 1759, her supportive is, it is intended to display and to make available to an elite
energies apparently declining, Guay gradually disappeared public of amateurs something of the range and brilliance
from public notice. Although he survived Pompadour by of a man she deemed a great artist. Pompadour's enthu-
thirty-three years, after her death, forgotten by Louis XV siasm for this project was such that she learned printmak-
200 Leturcq, 17. (Jacquiot, 624.)
201 For biographical details see Leturcq and Jacquiot. 204 See Jacquiot, 632-633, no. 940, where the cameo is illustrated in color.
202 Cordey, xxi. 205 Leturcq, 43, 57.
203 The Academy made Tournehem a present of Guay's reception piece. 206 Guay annotated a volume of the Suite d'estampes. See Leturcq, 149.
was
ing, I believe, just in order to accomplish what part of it more immediate, more tellingly personal, than any
other art objects she owned. They could become pendants
she could herself. Guay, Boucher, and Vien provided what
for necklaces, centerpieces for bracelets, crowning jewel
she was not skillful enough to make herself, the drawings
for finger rings. Faithful Friendship, a carnelian, was, in
after the gems from which she cut the plates. Her prints
(Fig. 19), even though probably supervised and retouched
fact, set as signet ring;210 a sardonyx, carved into a portrait
by Boucher and Cochin, are dry and uninspired, but of ad-Louis XV and set into a mount studded with emeralds,
equate to their purpose. She completed fifty-two platesbecame
in one of her bracelets. She is seen wearing it in th
portrait Boucher painted of her in 1758 (Fig. 21).211 Guay
addition to the title page by 1755, and she must have dis-
was, in a sense, Madame de Pompadour's personal jeweler;
tributed a small number of copies of the Suite then. Evi-
dently, she intended to continue to expand the corpusthatof he was also the artist to whom she devoted her most
vigorous and imaginative patronage is clearly related to
illustrations of Guay's works, but other concerns and per-
haps ill health prevented her from adding more than thisan fact.
additional eleven plates.207
Postscript
The special place gem cutting had in Pompadour's heart
The conclusions I have drawn from this survey of Pom-
is illustrated on the title page that Boucher designed for the
Suite d'estampes (Fig. 20).28 While two putti vie for padour's
the activity as a patron of the visual arts have already
glory of crowning the name of the suite's author, a third, been stated in the introduction to this essay. They will dis-
an infant connoisseur, studies a collection of cut stones.
appoint many readers, for Pompadour has been for most
of us a kind of heroine in the history of art patronage, an
Scattered on the ground, like discarded and inferior objects
of interest, are the attributes of other visual arts. example, we believed, of what intelligence, sensitivity, en-
One wonders what it was about the glyptic art that ergetic so commitment, and informed liberality can accom-
entranced Pompadour. It is a form, brought to an excep- plish. It seems appropriate, therefore, to reflect briefly on
tional level of perfection by the Greeks and Romans, that the possible reasons for Pompadour's failure to play the
has been especially appreciated in modern times when role the in the visual arts so long attributed to her.
desire to revive and imitate the artistic glories of antiquityThere can be no doubt, I think, but that in the official,
was strong. Many of Pompadour's contemporaries looked public sphere Pompadour's access to power and influence
was far more limited by the fact of her being a woman than
at gemstones with the eyes of connoisseur-antiquarians, and
it may be noted that about the time she began her Suite, has been realized until very recently. She could scheme suc-
P.-J. Mariette published his Traite des pierres gravies cessfully to place her uncle and brother at the head of the
(1750), which included an illustrated description of the royal
B ttiments, but neither she nor any woman could hope to
collection of cut stones. Pompadour, however, certainly occupy such a post in her own right. Nor could she possibly
have worked her will on the men in power with anything
did not have a scholarly interest in the form. Nor can it be
supposed that the antique-inspired style of Guay and other the ease and effectiveness that the Goncourts and oth-
like
modern gem cutters was what drew her to it. If anything, ers have taken for granted.212 French men of the eighteenth
her association with Guay and her commissions for works century, intellectuals and philosophes as well as bureau-
like Faithful Friendship (Fig. 19) seem responsible for in- were simply not prepared to accept the idea that the
crats,
troducing a Rococo current into a body of work thatopinions is and counsel of women might be worth heeding.213
otherwise more strictly informed by a classical ideal.209 Indeed, the idea was unreasonable in a society in which
The history of Pompadour's interest in the visual arts women, whatever their rank, were generally denied all but
the most elementary education and experience in worldly
suggests that it was their intrinsic character and function
affairs.214
that gave cut gems a special significance for her. They are, As for women and the arts, the abbe Le Blanc,
Pompadour's
after all, real gems. The very support of the image is pre- friend and Marigny's traveling companion,
had
cious. To possess them was to display not only culture, but occasion to comment on the subject in 1747. He rec-
ommended
great wealth, and therefore status and power in the society the arts as a suitable source of pleasure for
in which she moved. And these rare stones, vitalizedwomen, by as opposed to the sciences, for which they have
not the natural endowments. This very distinction, and his
designs of rare quality, could be displayed in a way that
207 The latest dated prints are from 1758. For the history of the Suite in Jacquiot, 633, no. 941.
d'estampes, see Leturcq, 13-17. The plates passed to Marigny and after 212 See the Introduction by E. Fox-Genovese in Spencer (pp. 1-29) for a
his death were acquired by Basan. An edition with an introduction and brief survey of recent research that necessitates a revision of the Gon-
notes on the plates was published in 1782. courts' notion of the "power of women" in 18th-century France.
208 In the edition of 1782 (p. 2) the composition of the title page is given 213 Authors of the Encyclopbdie warned against trusting women's judg-
to Boucher. Jean-Richard (as in n. 198), 356, believes the print was re- ments because they are based on imagination and feeling rather than rea-
touched by Cochin. son. One contributor remarked that "the French consider themselves for-
209 Cf. Jacquiot, 629. tunate because their government cannot be gynecocratic." See T.S. Dock,
Woman in the Encyclopbdie, Madrid, 1983, 73, 115, and passim.
210 Leturcq, 149.
214 See S. Spencer, "Women and Education," in Spencer, 83-96.
211 The cameo, now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, is illustrated in color
\j
i___- _______ voe
Ciir
"7- ....
:ci-?,rat
.... . >. j.. . -, ,,
19 Pompadour (after a dr
Pompadour), Faithful Frie
(photo: New York Public
21 Boucher, Madame
r ... .~ :I ':? ???
Museum, Charles E. D
:: ::.:
" University Art Museu
"" , L
.. ..?I:?I~
~?. ?? ::i
:??"~
i ?
:la:::1 ?8:~
B *:,?.
-~~ ~?:?.::::?I' ? .`?
?..-?? ? ?: ??
I ?
II .Ir
'"I".
' ?.
'
`i
' ...,.?'
?? ?? ? '~' ~'
r ; ;
commonplace preju
'''
: L1.?? "'
i ~?,.?r?. ? ??
:~ ?I ?~...
??? ?i ?.. ~. '~?~:~ ;?':??? ????.? .?? ???.
tastes, seek amusem
~ I i ~7~~sr~ * ~??? .~:?
4y':?:~c c . .? .. . . ~:? ? ? ????
?? ???
???? ??
?'~?:::: ''
clear that in his vi
i? ::?\. "?? ' '
C
..., 'I~: ; .. ~i.- r?-~ "' r, .?? "
?.. ., .-?. . challenges presented
?,
???j~~ ;$~"~ y \ I of the gentler sex.21
?-
*c~ r. r ?''k~ i.; ;?
and other men wer
r.) 1 ~4~:I
......
.- ?.? ???
.
"'
:;..?.?~??-? i! ?43~? ?t ?? ~n: r?i

-..r?~
:
CI~
?.~~ ..-..:
casional whims con
i~-?-
?? ?'*--
'"'~"~~?i ;1: ?.
r :s, t~ (P
(qL and no doubt she s
~C~rl
4c, ..j ~ ?C
'-.??.?
?;-' ?-
-?? way by means of po
:???-'
h~e?
hard to imagine th
rr\
/f~ ,?r~?
""'`' .r ?\: 'i~

\,I
.C?
,?
Ir??
important econom
were made because
.i ?~
r~
:
-??-
-?'????---??IL?L
....~
???? -?? ?,I .,?
?~ ?, Had it been otherwis

?? ..?ii,
influence would ap
""'
....
lr;: :c?i! the historical record we have examined.
???~?,~?S~ 'h r ~ )~C;;p ....,..-.1.?~:;-~i::::::;;:?:::::::-:
''Q """ Of course, whatever the obstacles to her attainment of
i': ~II l~o?~ "'"
"'
r. ~ ..??
-~ r ~?.~?m~??a~3--~?~rrr?l??
effective power as a public protector of the arts, she had
great opportunities to exercise her influence on the visual
..? '''
.~?-?1Y
ji
10
arts in the private sphere. The fact that, despite her ex-
1'er,
penditures on art, she was a patron much less vigorous and
.r? calculating in this sphere than she might have been suggests
that we have not recognized the limits of the intellectual
r??
;c"
strengths she possessed, and have perhaps also overrated
~:~i~
~" -i;: ~?~I"1.P??,~Zi?
~~ ??-- :i?'
'' '' "'
?1 ~C;;4
~;3
"'
?i ?. ??? .?
??? ?-???
-? 'I
''
.. ri~-.L
''
20 Pompadour and Cochin (after a drawing by Boucher), 215Title-

J.-B. Le Blanc, Lettre sur Iexposition des ouvrages de peinture, sculp-
page, etching and engraving (photo: New York Public Library)
ture, etc. de l'annee 1747, Paris, 1747, 136-142.
the significance of art in her life. a true, creative patron; she was not inspired by a desire to
Unfortunately, we know precious little about Pompa- be of service to art.
dour's education, beyond the fact that she learned to read
and write, and got instruction in the rudiments of religious Among Donald Posner's numerous publications on French
practice and in some of the social "graces," like singing and and Italian art of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
playing an instrument. But we do know that young women, are monographs on Annibale Carracci (1971) and Antoine
however high their social status, were almost never taught Watteau (1984) [Institute of Fine Arts, New York Univer-
academic subjects that provide the foundation and the tools sity, 1 East 78th Street, New York, NY 10021].
for the growth of knowledge and the exercise of the critical
faculties.216 Nothing we know suggests that Pompadour was
an exception to the rule. Furthermore, it does not appear Frequently Cited Sources
that she was one of those few, extraordinary women who,
like Mme. Geoffrin, succeeded in educating themselves Argenson, R.-L. de Voyer (Marquis d'), M&moires et journal, ed. E.J.B.
through regular participation in the intellectual life of the Rathery, 9 vols., Paris, 1859-67.
enlightened salons of Paris.217 Undoubtedly Pompadour was Bachelier, J.-J., M&moire historique de l'origine, du regime et des progres
a familiar of some salons, but mostly in the few years be- de la Manufacture Nationale de Porcelaine de France [ridige en 1781 , ed.
G. Gouellain, Paris, 1878.
fore she took up her royal duties. Afterward, the demands
of court life, with its constant peregrinations and its time- Biver, P., Histoire du Chateau de Bellevue, Paris, 1933.
consuming social and ceremonial obligations, effectively Brunel, G., Boucher, New York, 1986.
removed her from sustained, meaningful intercourse in a
Chavagnac, X. de, and G. de Grollier, Histoire des manufactures fran-
society that might have quickened her critical response to glaises de porcelaine, Paris, 1906.
the visual arts.
Cochin, C.-N., Voyage d'Italie, 3 vols., Paris, 1758.
It is entirely possible, therefore, that Pompadour ac-
tually had no profound knowledge of the arts nor any so- Cordey, J., Inventaire des biens de Madame de Pompadour ridigh apres
son dices, Paris, 1939.
phisticated conception of their operation and potential in
the history of her time. If this is so, then in her encounters Croy, Duc de, Journal inedit, ed. Vte. de Grouchy and P. Cottin, 4 vols.,
Paris, 1906-07.
with the visual arts she was dependent on the advice of
others, or else on the dictates of instinct. And instinct, even Dauterman, C.C., The Wrightsman Collection, Iv, Porcelain, New York,
1970.
if sensitive and even if, sometimes, a sure guide to quality,
tends to be erratic in its grasp of historical patterns and Eriksen, S., Early Neo-Classicism in France, London, 1974.
critical contexts. A dependence on instinct perhaps explains and G. de Bellaigue, Sevres Porcelain. Vincennes and Sevres, 1740-
that lack of coherence in Pompadour's patronage which has 1800, London and Boston, 1987.
curiously caused her to be viewed, simultaneously, as the
Fa#-Halle, and T. Preaud, Porcelaines de Vincennes, exh. cat., Grand
sponsor of the Rococo and the standard bearer of Palais, Paris, 1977.
Neoclassicism.
Gallet, D., Madame de Pompadour ou le pouvoir fiminin, Paris, 1985.
Finally, it must be recognized that Pompadour's "career"
made enormous demands on her. Her intellectual and emo- Gallet, M., Y. Bottineau, et al., Les Gabriel, Paris, 1982.
tional resources, like her time, necessarily had to be ap- , et al., Soufflot et son temps, Paris, 1980.
portioned among her many activities. The king's needs andGoncourt, E. and J. de, "Madame de Pompadour," in Les Mattresses de
the affairs of court and State naturally took precedence Louis XV, Paris, 1860. Cited here from E. de Goncourt, The Confidantes
over all other concerns. Her remaining energies must haveof a King, trans. E. Dowson, New York, 2 vols., 1909.
been devoted primarily to interests for which she had a Hautecoeur, L., Histoire de I'architecture classique en France, Iii-iv, Paris,
natural inclination or to which she was long accustomed. 1950-52.
As for her "cultural" activities, the theater had a higher Jacquiot, J., "Les Cambes et les intailles," in Louis XV. Un Moment de
priority for her than the visual arts. And so too, perhaps, perfection de I'art francais, exh. cat., H6tel de la Monnaie, Paris, 1974,
did card playing and gambling. 632-649.
The visual arts must have belonged to that category of Kalnein, W., and M. Levey, Art and Architecture of the Eighteenth Cen-
things for which, on the whole, and mainly excepting gem tury in France (The Pelican History of Art), Harmondsworth, 1972.
cutting, Pompadour possessed an interest but not a pas- [Laing, A.], Francois Boucher, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art,
sion, an acute sensitivity but not a deep understanding. She New York, 1986.
needed art to proclaim her position and to ornament her Laulan, R., "La Fondation de l'tcole Militaire et Madame de Pompadour,"
person and surroundings. But although she naturally Revue d'histoire moderne et contemporaine, xxI, April-June, 1974,
pressed art into her service, Mme. de Pompadour was not284-299.
enment Salons: The Convergence of Female and Philosophic Ambitions,"

216 See Spencer (as in n. 214). Even rudimentary education cannot be taken
Eighteenth-Century Studies, xxii, 1989, 334.)
for granted. Spencer notes (p. 84) that a daughter of Louis XV was twelve
before she was taught to read. The famous salonniere, Mme. Geoffrin,
217 See Goodman, 329-350.
was taught as a child to read, but not to write. (D. Goodman, "Enlight-
Leturcq, J.-F., Notice sur Jacques Guay, Paris, 1873. Rocheblave, S., Charles-Nicolas Cochin, Paris and Brussels, 1927.
Levey, M., see Kalnein. Spencer, S.I., ed., French Women and the Age of Enlightenment, Blo
ington, IN, 1984.
Levron, J., Pompadour, trans. C. Engel, New York, 1963.
Suite d'estampes gravbes par Madame la Marquise de Pompadour d
Malassis, M.A.P.-, Correspondance de Mme. de Pompadour avec son
les Pierres gravees de Guay, Graveur du Roy, Paris, 1782.
pere, M. Poisson, et son frere, M. de Vandieres, Paris, 1878.
Tadgell, C., Ange-Jacques Gabriel, London, 1978.
Nicolle, J., Madame de Pompadour et la societh de son temps, Paris, 1980.
Terrasson, J., Madame de Pompadour et la creation de la "Porcelai
R6au, L., 1922, htienne-Maurice Falconet, 2 vols., Paris. France," Fribourg, 1969.
, 1950, I.-B. Pigalle, Paris.

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Mme.

de Pompadour as a Patron of the Visual Arts

Mme. de Pompadour, through her purchases and policies, is widely believed

ernment policy and expenditures for the arts. She herself

.. ... . ... ... ...

;l, rl . ..... .....................

1 Carle Vanloo, The Arts Imploring

come mistress to the king, proclaimed the position,

:::: : ::: ::::-::::: ::::::::::::: ::::::::i::::::A ll::::::

----? :::::::::: :::::::::T

less than excellent and, by the standards of the time, a tour

monuments of ancient and modern Italian architecture. He !20

knew people in Italy and spoke the language. Marigny,

Private and Public Architecture

? ~r~1,::.iZx+--~i~--:?-::i---?--~-- U u ;I;- +I-+i L'-I -v "" _?.". ,,.',+ +,

5 J.-B. Rigaud, View of the Chateau of Bellevue, engraving (photo: Giraudon)

who took charge, often at the command of Louis XV, of a

Louis is known to have had a fairly well-defined notion of

Duverney's project was clearly a political and personal

80 Curiously, M. Gallet is an exception (Gallet-Bottineau, 278), and he isn. 25.

production, large subsidies from the king were required to

she owned at Sevres. But Antoine d'Albis and Tamara

easy for his craftsmen to translate into porcelain. The com-

new genre that Falconet lifted French porcelain to a new

artistic height. Under his direction, the sculpture studio

Boucher, which as late as 1780 were still very popular.128

large in the inventory of her po

from sales to the Crown, which was its most important

individual patron.139 Then as now, it was the business of

knowledge of the market, they placed orders with the fac-

dealerl41 if not otherwise, should have been given the most

on how exacting or original her tastes were.

Relatively few specific pieces of porcelain that Pompa-

animals, cherubs, and ribbons enlivened her porcelains, padour's

9 Pot-pourri Pompadour. Sevres,

::: :- -: ::- :::.. -.- : i~ii~i--:-:-:-- :-::

Mus&e National de C6ramique :: ::::: :::: :: : :: : ::-:- - ::::::: --: -::::--::- :

(photo: Mushes Nationaux)

10 Gondola Pot-pourri. New ii i!!! !! i ii ii :!ii i?! !!i i iiii i

York, Metropolitan Museum of

sonally more inventive as a creator of artistically signifi-

later in the group of sculptors charged to execute the statues

her appreciation and interest in him before then. By 1755,

for the creation of small-scale statuary. Apparently Fal-

165 Ibid., 157. 168 Reau, 1922, I, 246-247.

:: : As a patron of contemporary French painting, Pompa-

Pompadour. Lepicie, in fact, did not even mention her when

Marigny, that Louis-Michel Vanloo make a bust portrait

other commissions, however, even fairly important ones

eenth-century France art was still considered a commodity

........ . ...... q uxA?

14 Boucher, Winter. New York,

the painter's career, and that hardly indicates special ap-

15 Boucher, Madame de Pompa- e.-V

dour. Munich, Bayer. Staatsgemalde-

She is the imageafter

-~-----~I---"I" `--~~---~~ _"

i I: iii i" " -~-

16 Pompadour (after Boucher), Child with a Marmot Box,

17 Boucher, The Beautiful Country Woman. Pasadena, Norton

Printmaking and Gem Cutting

great talent as a printmaker. In her lifetime she had only

200 Leturcq, 17. (Jacquiot, 624.)

-~-----~I---"I" `----- _"