A CARVED MARBLE FIGURE OF JUSTICE BY FRANCOIS-MARIE PONCET (1736-1797), COMPLETED BY 1784 Depicted wearing a diadem and a classical shift, looking heavenward, with her left hand extended and with a sword pommel in her right hand, the reverse unfinished, on an integrally carved base; chips, weathering, the sword blade lacking, restorations 78½ in. (198.2 cm.) high, approx.
S. Lami, Dictionnaire des sculptures de l'Ecole Française au dix-huitième siècle, Paris, 1911, reprinted in 1970, II, p. 269. O. Michel, 'François-Marie Poncet (1736-1797) et le retour à l'antique', Vivre et peindre à Rome au XVIIIe siècle, Ecole Française à Rome, Rome, 1996.
COMPARATIVE LITERATURE: F. Haskell and N. Penny, Taste and the Antique, London, 1981, pp. 274-279. P. Malgouyres, Porphyre - La Pierre Pourpre des Ptolémées aux Bonaparte, Paris, 2003, p. 24, no. 1.
Provenance
Almost certainly acquired by Alfred Sommier in circa 1890 for the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte and by descent until sold, Paris, Beaussant-Lefèvre, 17 June 2005, lot 144, to the present owner.
Notes
Until 2005 the marble figure of Justice offered here lay undisturbed in the Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte, Maincy. However, a subsequent connection between this marble and an engraving of the de Boullenois funerary monument in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris, (see comparative illustration) undeniably confirms that this is the same marble figure that surmounted the monument carved by François-Marie Poncet in 1784 for the de Boullenois family and that has been lost since its dismantling during the Revolution.
Poncet was a student at the Académie de Marseille in 1754 and later a pupil of Etienne-Maurice Falconet at the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in Paris. In 1760, he moved to Rome where he stayed for fifteen years and where he returned again in 1777 to be elected a member of the academy of Bologna. He finally left Italy in 1796 by which time he had established a sound reputation as a highly skilled imitator of the ancients. His style, that both emulated the ancients but also displayed his great sense of dynamism, is clearly illustrated in the marble offered here, which used, as its source, the antique group of Niobe and her Daughter in the Uffizi, Florence (Haskell and Penny, op. cit., no. 66).
The monument for Louis de Boullenois and his wife Charlotte Dubois was commissioned by their children and was to be installed in Notre-Dame-du-Mont-Carmel (now destroyed) in Place Maubert. By 1784 Poncet had executed the various elements for the monument in Rome and then left for Paris in order to assemble it. The final stages of its completion were documented in the Diario ordinario of 10 April 1784 and its journey to Paris was described in the Giornale delle belle arti on 26 June: 'si e posto nella strada che mena a Parigi' ('it is placed on the road which leads to Paris', Michel, op. cit., p.235).
In its final form, the monument was composed of a pyramid that stood behind a richly embellished spreading base and upon which a Roman-style sarcophagus, mounted with a porphyry urn, was placed. In front of the sarcophagus stood the figure of Justice, and above her was an elaborately carved eagle bearing the mosaic portraits of both de Boullenois and his wife. In terms of style, it was unlike any other neo-classical tomb of its day. Louis Hautecoeur considered the commission to represent a break with tradition although it was, in its complexity 'dans la tradition des Maniéristes' (in the tradition of the mannerists). He went on to compare it to Canova's mausoleum for Clement XIV, in SS. Apostoli, Rome (ibid, p. 236), which, in its simplicity, represented the essence of the neo-classical ideal.
Sometime during the French Revolution, however, the monument was damaged and dismantled. The mosaic portraits were kept by de Boullenois' son and the porphyry urn was eventually sold to Berthault in 1807 to furnish the Empress Josephine's Château de Malmaison. It now resides in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (Malgouyres, loc. cit). The remaining elements were sold to the Parisian marble dealer Scellier through whom the elaborate eagle surmounting the monument ended up in the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, Paris. The last known mention of the Justice before her disappearance in 1801 was in the fifth edition of the Description historique et chronologique des monumens de sculpture réunis au Musée des monumens français (Michel, op. cit., p. 241). Only two impressions of the ensemble, citing Poncet as its author and dating it to the early 19th century have survived; these are in the form of two engravings by 'J.-L.' and 'Blanchard' in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Paris (ibid, figs. 15 and 16 - see also the comparative illustration).
As previously discussed, the inspiration for the Justice is, without doubt, the group of Niobe and her Daughter in the Uffizi, Florence. The antique marble, discovered in Rome in 1583 and then moved to the Uffizi in 1770, is clearly a piece that Poncet would have studied during his time in Florence. Its choice as the prototype for the commission gave the sculptor the means to demonstrate his classical credentials, but also a medium to aptly convey the idea of sadness at the death of de Boullenois. Furthermore, since de Boullenois was an advocate of the Parisian parliament, the representation of Justice in the guise of Niobe was a highly appropriate iconographical image, it was also an economical one since, by the relatively simple removal of Niobe's child and the addition of a sword, it was easily transformed into the required allegory.
When unveiled on 15 July 1786, the monument received a mixed reception with some contemporary critics commenting that it was too grandiose, particularly on account of the figure of Justice. The abbot Carletti, however, was amazed by her and commented on the quality of her drapery and the diversity of the folds that the varying textiles created. He concluded by saying that she was a Matrona dignitosa (ibid, p. 237). An article in the Journal polytype des sciences (quoted in ibid, p. 240) stated that many were disconcerted by the form and spirit of Poncet's novel monument, however, it went on to say that 'Les monuments de ce genre sont encore assez rares en France et les amateurs doivent accueillir avec plaisir des richesses nouvelles, communes d'ailleurs en Italie' ('Monuments of this type are still quite rare in France, and amateurs must receive these sculptures, already common in Italy, with pleasure').
Perhaps the greatest recognition for Poncet's innovative creation is that Antonio Canova used it as a basis for some of his funerary monuments (ibid, p. 240) such as Titian's tomb in 1794-6, Marie-Christine of Austria's in 1805 and Vittorio Alfieri's that was conceived, but never executed, between 1830-6.
Although Poncet's extant works are rare, a signed and dated marble figure of Hebe carved in his master's style was sold from the collection of Maurice Fenaille, Daguerre, Paris, 7 Jun. 2006, lot 187 (290,000 Euros).
