Lot 328: LOUIS TOCQUÉ (PARIS 1696 - 1772) AND STUDIO

LOUIS, DAUPHIN DE FRANCE

74 3/4 by 55 in.; 190 by 140 cm.

oil on canvas

Paris, Galerie Gazette des Beaux-Arts, Le Siècle de Louis XV vu par les artistes, June 1934, no. 15;
New York, Rosenberg & Stiebel, Elements of Style: The Art of the Bronze Mount in 18th and 19th Century France, April 13-June 15, 1984, no.1, pp.12-14, reproduced fig. 3.

A. Doria, "Tocqué et les commandes royales", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, XVIII, September-October 1928, pp. 154-155;
A Doria, "Tocqué et les commandes royales", in Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire de l'Art Français, 1928, p. 341;
A. Doria, Louis Tocqué, Paris 1929, p. 130, under no. 71.

Bamberger collection;
His sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, March 17, 1923, lot 79 (as Studio of Louis Tocqué).

This painting is a replica by Tocqué of the signed and dated portrait formerly in the Royal collection and now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris. (1)

The subject of this portrait, Louis de France (1729-1765), was the fourth child and only son of Louis XV and his Polish-born consort, Maria Leczinska. Although heir to the throne, he was disliked by his father who purposely kept him at a distance from the affairs of state. Thus, he was only admitted to the Royal Council after 1757, when an attempt was made on the monarch's life. Devout in the extreme, the Dauphin became an advocate for the Jesuit cause. He was an avowed enemy of his father's mistress, Madame de Pompadour, and his Prime Minister, the Duc de Choiseul. Louis died before he could accede to the throne. It was even intimated that Choiseul had poisoned him.

The Dauphin was twice married, the first time in 1745 to an Infanta of Spain, Maria Teresa de Borbón (1726-1746), who died in childbirth. By his second wife, Maria Josepha of Saxony (1731-1767), he sired eight children, three of whom would eventually reign as kings of France: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, and Charles X.

1. See Doria, op.cit., 1929, cat. no. 71 for the Louvre picture, and also for a discussion of the other versions of the composition.