Lot 81: Jacques Bertaux (Arcis-sur-Aube c . 1745-1818 Paris)

Jacques Bertaux (Arcis-sur-Aube c. 1745-1818 Paris)
The hunting party of Louis-Philippe I, duc d'Orléans (1725-1785), in the Île-de-France
signed and dated 'Bertaux · 1773 ·' (lower centre)
oil on canvas
51½ x 77 in. (130.8 x 195.6 cm.)
in a contemporary Louis XVI carved giltwood frame

Louis-Philippe I, duc d'Orléans (1725-1785), presumably at the Château de Saint-Cloud, and by descent to
Louis-Philippe III, duc d'Orléans, subsequently King of the French (1773-1850) and by descent.
Private collection, France.
Private collection, Switzerland, by 1981.
with Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York, 1986.

VAT rate of 5% is payable on hammer price and at 17.5% on the buyer's premium.
A pupil of Bachelier, Bertaux was a specialist in animal and sporting pictures. His admiration for eighteenth-century British practitioners of the genre, such as John Wootton, is immediately evident in this charming picture, and may also reflect the anglophile tastes of his patron, Louis-Philippe I, duc d'Orléans.

The present picture is considered to be one of a set of four showing the duke hunting in neighbourhood of the Château de Saint-Cloud, his country seat in the Île-de-France; the set was perhaps painted to hang there (with Stair Sainty Matthiesen, New York, 1986). The present picture is one of only two to bear a date (formerly erroneously catalogued as '1778'), and is of considerably higher quality than the others, with greater attention paid to the detail of the physiognomies and attitudes of the figures, the welcoming composition and the warm shadows of the trees and foliage. It has been suggested that a different artist may have executed the landscape in the other three (one of which appeared at Christie's, New York, 4 April 1990, lot 230).
Bertaux is also remembered for his depiction of the Battle of Poltava, 27 June 1709, of the Storming of the Tuileries, 10 August 1792 and of The Imperial cortège crossing the Pont-Neuf, Paris, en route to Notre-Dame for the coronation of Napoléon, 2 December 1804, the latter of which is in the Musée Carnavalet, Paris. The ducs d'Orléans were arguably the most important art collectors of ancien régime France, forming a renowned collection which was largely dispersed in 1793.