Lot 86: Niclas Lafrensen (Stockholm 1737 - Stockholm 1807)

A Lady (1763-1832/3), traditionally called Princesse de Vaudémont-Lorraine, wearing pink satin dress with buckled bodice over white underdress and gauze fill-in, a black veil wrapped around her waist and over her head, she stands in an interior with pilasters, green upholstered chaise-longue and table bearing urn of flowers, a turquoise ribbon about its base
gilt-metal frame, labelled on reverse Princess de Vaudémont. Loraine/ née Montmornecy/ son salon fut célébre sous le 1e Empire/ et la Restauration et assiduement/ frequente par Talleyrand, Narbonne etc/ Elle fut don de cette miniature à/ mon arriere-grand-oncle (et pere adoptif)/ Mathieu Orfila, doyen de la faculte de/ Medecine/ Esp***** Douglas/ du "Serail" de/ Talleyrand
Rectangular, 175mm. (6 7/8ins.) high

S.N.P.G., 2000-2003

Louise Auguste Elisabeth Marie Colette de Montmorency married, in 1778, Joseph Marie de Lorraine, Prince de Vaudémont (d.1812), son of the celebrated Comtesse de Brionne. Lady Granville described her as 'uncommonly agreeable, full of new thoughts and strong opinions, cordial and good-natured and as natural as her monkey'. In control of her own fortune, she was able to afford a 'salon de permanence' that was one of the most significant of the period. 'Both in her château in Suresnes outside Paris and in her flower-filled hôtel in the rue de Provence near the boulevards, where every room was a garden, she kept open house every day of the year, except on the day she gave a ball for the poor. Her guests, whom she called her conscripts, included- as well as the Corps Diplomatique- Wellington, Richelieu, Pasquier and Count Rostopchine. Talleyrand often sat in a corner, playing with his cane, breaking his silence only to lash out with a well-prepared epigram against the enemy of the moment' (Philip Mansel, Paris Between Empires 1814-1852, 2001, p. 132). The influence and draw of the salon is borne out in the recollections of Joseph Orfila, a young doctor who was a frequent visitor: 'I have obtained more advantageous decisions for the Faculty, I have succeeded in more projects relative to research, in salons than in the proceedings of commissions and in government offices' and 'The attraction which this salon had for me was such that it completely absorbed me and I almost never left my home except to go there' (op. cit., p. 134).

During his second sojourn in Paris the Swedish-born miniaturist Lafrensen established his reputation with small-scale genre subjects depicting elegant figures in interiors or parkland, a continuation of the tradition of P.A. Baudouin. Even if compositions represented a single figure, which was not often the case, they were conceived as subject pieces rather than specific portraits. This is emphasised in the titles given- 'l'accord parfait' (a man seated in a woodland) and 'le consolation de l'absence' (a lady seated and contemplating a miniature). The present miniature is therefore unusual for the period in that a specific portrait, more usually rendered as a bust or half-length, has been executed in full-length and, as a consequence, fuses the two different genres. Upon Lafrensen's return to Sweden, circa 1790, he reused this innovative format for portraits of King Gustaf III and Sophie Hagman (both Nationalmuseum, Stockholm) and the Sparre family (Öfedskloster).