Piat-joseph Sauvage (1744-1818) Portrait Of Buffon Aged 65 Miniature Tournai

Piat-Joseph SAUVAGE (Tournai, 1744 - Tournai, 1818) Portrait of Buffon aged 65 Circular gouache Diameter: 6.5 cm Signed lower center Around 1775 Provenance: Château du Marais Related work: engraving by Augustin de Saint -Aubin published in 1798, taking up this portrait (No. 32 of the catalog raisonné of the engraved work of Saint-Aubin) Piat-Joseph Sauvage is the main artist of the end of the 18th century specializing in trompe-l'oeil painting in imitation of marble or bronze, in the antique style. Using all supports, canvas, marble, ivory or porcelain, he essentially produced bas-reliefs with mythological subjects and often decorative (above doors), as well as portraits in profile on a blue or dark gray background resembling medals or cameos. Concerning this last genre, Henri Bouchot wrote in 1910 in his book La miniature française 1750-1825: "He drew elegant profiles, with a cut neck, like medals or coins, of which he was neither the inventor nor the propagator. Cochin, Greuze had long preceded him; only he gave it an elegant finish, very much in the taste of amateurs". Initially trained at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, after a stint in Brussels, Sauvage quickly went to Paris where he exhibited in 1764 at the Academy of Saint Luke; he was already famous and sought after by a private clientele when he was received at the Academies of Toulouse and Lille, respectively in 1774 and 1776. He participated in the Salon of 1781 (the year in which he was approved at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture , before being received in 1783) to 1810, with a total of fifty works. He then worked a lot for the royal palaces (Compiègne, Fontainebleau, Louvre, Saint-Cloud, Chantilly, Rambouillet), then in the service of porcelain factories (Dihl and Guérard in Paris, and Sèvres) for about fifteen years, before return around 1810 to Tournai, where he directed the Drawing Academy until his death. Sauvage paints here a portrait of Georges-Louis Leclerc (Montbard, 1707-Paris, 1788), just before he was named Count of Buffon in 1773 by Louis XV, the most famous naturalist scientist of the 18th century, but also a philosopher and writer, emblematic personality of the Age of Enlightenment. In a letter to Madame Daubenton dated November 30, 1772, Buffon thus evokes the expectation of his portrait in grisaille by Sauvage mounted in a box. Subsequently, Buffon will offer his portrait mounted on precious boxes on several occasions, in recognition of services rendered to the Jardin du Roi. It is therefore difficult to know whether our work is the original (which was at the end of the 19th century in the collection of Henri Nadault, the great-grandnephew of the naturalist) or not among the various examples painted by Sauvage. . We thus find in an auction of miniatures and objects of showcases (collection of Mr. Ch...B...) of March 22, 1884, Drouot Room 7, a "Portrait in profile of Mr. de Buffon, by Sauvage , in grisaille on a black background. Frame in gilded bronze" under the number 76 of the catalog. Yet another, in oval format, sold for 170 francs on May 31, 1910 at Drouot Room 1, collection of MR.., number 10 of the catalog: "Oval miniature in grisaille: Silhouette of Buffon, by Sauvage. Signed. Louis XVI period. Bronze frame". There is also a copy presented at the Miniature Exhibition, Brussels, March-July 1912, catalog number 1089; the work belonged to the collection of Madame Orban, wife of Alfred Orban de Xivry (1857-1922), Catholic lawyer and politician. Its reproduction p. 151 in Flemish and Dutch Art of January 1912 shows that it is not ours.