Description / Expertise
This charming painting is a fine example of the genre scenes, inspired by the Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century masters, which enjoyed great popularity in France in the closing years of the ancien régime. From the 1740s onwards, Dutch and Flemish paintings became so popular with French collectors, that by 1748 the Comte de Caylus wrote that the taste had “almost banished the Italian pictures from our cabinets, where we only display today Flemish pictures” ; and the taste for Dutch and Flemish paintings was given further impetus in the last quarter of the eighteenth century by the activities of dealers such as Jean Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun (husband of Mme Vigée Lebrun) , who ensured that these pictures were widely available on the Paris art market and the publication of books such as Lebrun’s Galérie des Peintres Flamands, Hollandais, et Allemands, which appeared in 1792. It became increasingly fashionable at this period to hang modern French paintings by masters like Fragonard and Greuze in the company of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century pictures, following the example set by collectors such as the Duc de Choiseul, whose celebrated cabinet at the Hotel de Choiseul, was immortalised in the series of miniatures painted by Van Blarenburgh for the famous Choiseul snuff-box . Both Fragonard and Marguerite Gérard catered to this taste, Fragonard, for example, painting a free variation, now in the Louvre, of Jan Steen’s Harpsichord Lesson in the Wallace Collection, London as well as several direct copies of Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century paintings, and Marguerite Gérard painting a series of Dutch- inspired genre scenes between the 1780s and the early 1800s, examples of which are La Bonne Nouvelle(1804)and Le Petit Messager, both currently with Colnaghi. On the whole, though, Marguerite Gerard tended to eschew the overt eroticism of Fragonard, in favour of more demure subjects celebrating bourgeois and upper-class life, as was appropriate to a female artist, and she drew her inspiration not from the low-life scenes of Jan Steen, but from the more polished high-class interiors of Ter Borch, Caspar Netscher and, above all Metsu. It is perhaps understandable, given her role as a female artist, that she focused largely on depictions of women, usually presented in romantic or maternal roles and often, as in our picture, accompanied by pets and servants. While her canvases record the privileged and secluded lives of educated women of her own time, they also look forward to the domestic genre scenes that became so popular later in the nineteenth century.
The present picture, painted in the 1780s and forming originally a pendant with a lost painting of a spaniel (Le Chien epagneul) is part of a group of works, formerly attributed to Marguerite Gérard, which have recently been recognised by scholars as collaborative works between Fragonard and Gérard. Shortly after Fragonard’s return from Italy, probably in 1775, following the death of her mother, Marguerite Gérard moved from Grasse to Paris and joined the household of her sister and brother-in-law Fragonard, becoming his pupil and sharing his studio in the Louvre. Whether the relationship between the two artists went beyond that of sister and brother-in-law is hard to establish. Rosenberg believes that it is unlikely that they were lovers, but certainly the surviving letters written by Gérard to Fragonard, reveal a very close friendship, which may have had a paternal element (Fragonard was thirty years her senior) and probably became increasingly intimate following the death of Fragonard’s daughter Rosalie in 1788. What is undeniable, also, is that the artistic relationship between the two was extremely important and fruitful during the last thirty years of Fragonard’s life and the intimacy of the relationship is revealed in what Rosenberg describes as the “winks exchanged by the two”, which “reveal their complicity as artists” . The pretty young art student in Gérard’s Elève intéressante (Lost canvas, 1786), for example, generally believed to be a self-portrait of Gérard , contemplates a print after Fragonard’s Fountain of Love in a picture which contains a very similar mirrored ball to that found in the Colnaghi picture. More directly this led to a large number of collaborative works beginning, in 1778, with an etching, after Fragonard’s Le Chat emmailloté in which Fragonard literally seems to have guided her hand on the burin and a large number of genre paintings painted between c.1780 and Fragonard’s death in 1806, which most scholars now believe to be by both artists. These include according to Jean-Pierre Cuzin between twenty-five and thirty genre pictures painted in the last quarter of the eighteenth century. Cuzin believes that the majority of the paintings executed by Fragonard during the last fifteen years of his life were painted in collaboration with Marguerite Gérard, with Gérard playing an increasingly important role and that only after 1799, when she began to exhibit at the Salon under her own name, did Gérard develop as an independent artist, though her role in influencing Fragonard at this period was undeniably extremely important. It is indicative of the closeness of the collaboration between the two artists that, even in their own life time, paintings were assigned, in some cases to both artists and, in other cases, the attribution changed within a very short space of time. Thus La Nouvelle du retour (Musée Fragonard, Grasse), was engraved under the name of Fragonard in the 1780s, exhibited also under his name in the Salon of 1793 and sold as Fragonard in a sale of 1787; but in 1804 this same picture was sold as the work of the by-then-more-famous Marquerite Gérard. Conversely la Jeune Femme jouant de la guitare près d’un enfant pres d’un berceau, ou dors mon enfant (Staatliche Kunsthalle, Karlsruhe) is signed by Gérard and was engraved as by her in 1789, but was sold as in 1795 as a painting by “Fragonard et la citoyenne Gérard”.
In disentangling the respective contributions of the two artists to these collaborative works, recent attention has been focussed on the differences in technique and artistic temperament revealed by their independent works. Rosenberg and Cuzin agree that the two artists had very distinctive personalities: Fragonard more dynamic, Gérard more careful and detailed in her approach. In terms of technique, Fragonard’s work reveals a preference for warmer colours, looser brushwork and bold contrasts of light and shadow, which derive from his study of Rembrandt, whereas Gérard’s work is notable for its cooler colours, even lighting and meticulous surfaces in the manner of Metsu and, in terms of figure types, Fragonard’s figures tend to be stockier with broader faces and Gérard’s tend to be more elongated. These distinctions can also be extended to their differing responses to Dutch seventeenth-century art: Fragonard drawing inspiration above all from Rembrandt and Marguerite Gérard being drawn to the highly-polished haute bourgeois interiors of artists such as Terborch and Metsu, with whom her work was favourably compared by critics at the time .
The Colnaghi painting of Le Chat Angora, dated by Wells-Robertson circa 1783-85, shares a number of motifs common in Gérard’s compositions of the early 1780’s, such as the pleated fan, the broad-brimmed hat and the still-life elements and shows the influence of such Dutch seventeenth-century masters as Gerard ter Borch, Gabriel Metsu and Caspar Netscher, in the intimate scale of the painting, the interior setting of the scene and its romantic undertones. Other elements also recall these ‘petits mâitres hollandaises’: the presence of pets, the rug draped over the table, the contrast between youthful beauty and old age, and the meticulous attention to texture and detail. At the same time the interest in the effect of the light falling over the yellow silk dress recalls that in Fragonard’s much more dynamic and erotically-charged Le Verrou (Louvre, Paris), and the neat features of the girl with her retroussé nose recall that seen in other late works by Fragonard such as Le Souvenir (Wallace Collection, London). The broad handling of the features of the servant woman behind the door, which introduce a low-life element normally lacking in Gerard’s independent works, also suggest the hand of Fragonard and the virtuoso painting of the cat and the dog running in through the door, also have very direct parallels in Fragonard’s oeuvre. Perhaps the closest parallel is with Le Present (Hermitage Museum, St Petersburg) a painting which was described in the 1795 Villers sale catalogue as a collaborative work by “Fragonard et la citoyenne Gérard” and is dated by Cuzin 1786-7 . The stance and the features of the young lady in the Hermitage painting, attributed by Cuzin to Fragonard, are very similar to that in the Colnaghi painting as is the lively spaniel, whereas the tablecarpet and other similar still-life elements in the Hermitage picture, attributed by Cuzin to Gerard, have parallels in the Colnaghi Le Chat Angora. Though attributed by Wells-Robertson in 1978 to Gerard, Le Chat Angora is now generally considered to be a collaborative work Fragonard with the assistance of Gérard . Fragonard’s hand can be discerned in the painting of the cat and its reflection in the ball, the dog, the figure of the servant in the doorway (influenced by Rembrandt), the face, hat, satin ribbons, feather in the hat and the hands, while the still-life elements and the overall conception of the interior, with its debt to Van Mieris and Ter Borch, is probably attributable to Marguerite Gérard.
Both Fragonard and Gérard would have been able to see and study works by the Dutch masters of genre painting in various private collections. Prints and public sales were other possible sources for the artist. Although such works undoubtedly provided a source of motifs, the use they made of them to create a mood and environment were highly distinctive and went beyond mere imitation. Here, for example, they are used to evoke an earlier age. The painting on the wall is in the style of Paulus Potter (1625-1654), an artist greatly admired at the time, while the rug on the table is an Anatolian model from the late seventeenth or early eighteenth century. The dress itself is, as Wells-Robertson notes, also slightly outdated. A variation of the ‘robe à l'Anglaise’, it was known as a ‘déguisement de theatre’ after 1780 when the old-fashioned bouffant-sleeves were worn only on the stage.
Two motifs stand out in our painting: the mirrored ball and the white cat. Throughout her career, Gérard was fascinated by reflections in mirrors and globes. Here one can see not only the distortion of the grinning cat and the dress of the young lady, but also the reflection of the artist, seated at an easel, and two figures, a standing man, who may well be Fragonard, and another female figure, possibly his wife (Marguerite Gérard’s sister). Globes such as this one were objects of great rarity and value, and its inclusion in another work by Gérard suggests it was a studio prop belonging to the artist. It is not clear what the source for this motif is. Although it recalls the interest in reflective surfaces found in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch and Flemish genre scenes and still lifes, a mirrored sphere is itself very rare in such works. Glass globes suspended by ribbons often feature in the still lifes of Pieter Gerritsz. van Roestraten (1630-1700), where they are associated with a vanitas theme, but it seems improbable that its presence here has any such function; rather it introduces an element of playfulness and animation to the scene.
The white cat occurs in a number of other works by Gerard and cats are also found in the work of Fragonard, for example in Le Chat emmailloté which was engraved collaboratively by Gérard and Fragonard. It is also present, along with a spotted spaniel, in Gérard’s supposed self-portraits, which suggests that they may have been pets in the Fragonard household. Although cats are not uncommon in seventeenth-century Dutch genre pictures, it would be difficult to find many examples in which one is given the prominent and distinctive role that the cat has in our picture. Playful dogs sometimes feature prominently in works by Dutch artists such as Frans van Mieris, Metsu and Jacob Ochtervelt. The latter, for example, produced a small number of paintings with jumping dogs, which are of particular relevance here because in the 1788 sale (see provenance) our picture was offered with a pendant, ‘Le chien épagneul.’ The description of this work in the sale catalogue describes a similar scene to that of Octhervelt’s compositions. Fragonard frequently depicted lively animals, which often, though carry more erotic overtones in his independent works than the affectionate display of the cat here.
While it is true that such animals often had an overt symbolic function in seventeenth-century works, it seems unlikely that they should be interpreted in this way in our painting. Playing with its grinning reflection, the cat simply entertains its mistress, a role found in other works by the artist. Although dogs often symbolize fidelity in works of this type, the spaniel here – shown barking at the cat – has a more anecdotal role. Taken together, the two animals enliven the quiet, restrained mood of the scene and Fragonard and Gérard prefer to concentrate on the animals rather that the departing man or the nature of his visit. His presence is only alluded to by the old maid standing by the open door and the tail of his cloak just visible in the doorway itself. If there was any tension or distress in the meeting then there is no trace of it on the lady’s face. She is quite simply absorbed by the charming antics of the cat.
There is a mood of calmness and serenity in this painting found earlier in the genre paintings of Chardin, although the beautiful young lady in our work is some distance from the more mundane and earthy women of the latter. She is a figure enclosed in a safe and sealed world. It is an environment, elegant and refined, constructed from familiar motifs drawn from earlier sources and yet rearranged to create a highly distinctive private world.
Until recently ‘Le Chat Angora’ was in the collection of the de Riquet family. It was purchased in 1828 by Victor-Louis-Charles de Riquet (1762-1839), 1st Duc de Caraman, a French diplomat, soldier and collector. As a young man, he travelled extensively in Europe, meeting such distinguished figures as Frederick II, King of Prussia, Catherine II, Empress of Russia and William Pitt the Younger. Although he initially supported the Revolution, he soon became disillusioned and joined the Prussian army. He was arrested in 1801 and it was not until the Restoration of 1814 that he was freed. After a brief spell as ambassador in Berlin, he spent fourteen years in the same role in Vienna, after which he returned to Paris and was made Duc de Caraman in 1828. In the last ten years of his life he devoted himself to problems of industry and political economy. A great art lover, he amassed an impressive collection of Old Masters, including works by Giovanni Bellini, Correggio, Dolci, Guercino, Reni, Claude, Vernet, Canaletto, Greuze and Vermeer (Woman weighing Pearls, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.). There was a sale of some of his collection in Paris in 1830.
Le Chat Angora is not only one of the most charming and accomplished of the collaborative paintings produced by Fragonard and Gerard in the 1780s; it is also one of the most personal. The virtuoso painting of the mirrored ball in the foreground, to which both our eyes and those of the Angora cat are drawn, harks back, consciously or unconsciously, to the convex mirror in the background of Jan Van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait, now in the National Gallery, London, but then in the Spanish Royal Collection, which, in turn was an important source of inspiration for Velasquez’s masterpiece Las Meninas. Like the Arnolfini Portrait and Las Meninas, Le Chat Angora makes a highly personal artistic statement, which here seems to be about the role of the female artist portrayed in the reflection at her easel, about the sources of inspiration in the art of an earlier age which Marguerite Gerard, France’s first female genre painter, incorporated into her own art. It may also make a more subliminal statement about the role played by Fragonard and her sister in her life and art.
By 1785 Marguerite Gerard had become, alongside artists such as Vallayer-Coster and Vigée-Lebrun, one of the leading women artists in France. An accomplished portrait painter, she exhibited at the Salon from 1799 to 1824. Her work was popularized through engravings by Gérard Vidal, Robert de Launay and her brother Henri Gérarda and her success was due, in no small measure, to the affectionate tutelage and collaboration of her brother-in-law who not only worked on this picture, but who may also have been commemorated here with an affectionate subtlety, which was typical of their relationship: in Pierre Rosenberg’s words, one of the “winks exchanged by the two”, which “reveal their complicity as artists”.
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