FROM MEDICI TO BOURBON - Newport Mansions

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Numidian marble wall bays were geometrically designed to receive them, hang portraits of Louis XIV, Louis XV, Maximilian II Emmanuel of Bavaria, and the duchesse d’Orléans. The likeness of Louis XIV hangs over a salon d’Hercule- inspired mantel, reflecting the décor of the salon as known in the nineteenth-century when the Veronese from Versailles was replaced with an equestrian portrait of Louis. The portrait is a variant on the 1668 allegory of Louis as Protector of the Arts, commissioned by the Academie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture from Henri Testelin (1616-1695). 128 Believed to have been presented to the council chamber at Ypres, the canvas was cut from its frame during the Revolution and was subsequently acquired on the English market by Wertheimer. Its impression on visitors may have been magnetic. By 1897 Alva would offer her son-in-law, the ninth duke of Marlborough, an identical version of this portrait, also mounted as an over mantel for the second state room at Blenheim, where the Bourbon association was more historically-based than at <strong>Newport</strong>. Louis XV at the Age of 13 (1723) is one of a half dozen versions of the subject by Jean-Baptiste Van Loo and his school. 129 This work is in an elaborately carved rococo presentation frame bearing the arms of the comte d’Artois. The arms were likely married to the frame during the era of the duchesse de Berry or fabricated by Allard. Joseph Duveen was more taken with the frame than the painting and is quoted by Alva as proclaiming it ‘the handsomest frame he had ever seen and worth $30,000.’ 130 She did not resist the temptation to sell and the Louis XV together with the following portraits were consigned to Duveen in 1926 only to be returned unsold to the house in 1930. The other pair of portraits represented Max Emmanuel of Bavaria (1706) by Hyacinthe Rigaud and the duchesse d’Orléans 128 Thierry Bajou, Paintings at Versailles, XVIII Century, Buchet-Chastel, Paris, 1998. 129 Pierre Lemoine, Guide du Musée et domaine de Trianon, Editions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, Paris, 1990, p. 40. 130 Archives of the William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, unpublished Memoirs, of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont; in the Mathilda Young Papers, circa 1928, p. 115. 34
(c.1715) attributed to Nicolas de Largillière. The Rigaud was thought to represent the duc d’Orléans and these latter works were originally acquired as pendants. Of the architecturally mounted ceiling paintings, three are of particular note. The practice of removing seventeenth and eighteenth-century ceiling paintings from period buildings was commonplace in nineteenth-century Paris and entailed the specialized services of a rentoileur. 131 It was his job to remove the painting in strips, to reassemble and reback the work. Once Allard took charge of the canvas’s resale and reinstallation, additional figures or scenery were often painted-in, to hide seams, and the canvas might be extended or cut down according to the architectural needs of the ceiling decoration. 132 This seemingly cavalier approach to often significant compositions was in many respects an act of salvation for works which were located in imperiled interiors. It was often viewed as modern restoration. Once in place the paintings were generally glued directly to the masonry with white lead to insure a stable surface but, in so doing, they were permanently joined to the destiny of the structure. That this was not an apparent concern is apparent in Alva Vanderbilt’s reflections on Marble House: ‘It was like a fourth child to me and I felt, and feel, that it belongs to me, and to my children after me.’ 133 Ironically this dynastic dream would be quickly thwarted. She would live to see her children decline the house, which Consuelo dubbed ‘a prison’, and its token sale for $1 to a <strong>Newport</strong> neighbor in 1932. 134 131 Henry Havard, Dictionaire de l’ameublement, E. Rouveyre et G. Blond, Paris, 1884, p.392. 132 Paul F. Miller, Jules Allard et ses Fils, unpublished manuscript, Getty Research Institute, Los Angles, 2005, p. 125. 133 William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, unpublished Memoirs, of Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, in the Mathilda Young Papers, circa 1928, p. 113. 134 Consuelo Vanderbilt Balsan, The Glitter and the Gold, William Heinemann Ltd., London, 1953, p. 19. 35
Page 1 and 2: FROM MEDICI TO BOURBON: THE FORMULA
Page 3 and 4: In collaboration with the French-tr
Page 5 and 6: Chapter 1: Cultural Awakening Head
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Page 33: Richard Morris Hunt. Nearby hang tw
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FROM MEDICI TO BOURBON - Newport Mansions

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