Monday, May 11, 2020

Eighteenth-Century French Paintings in British Collections - II

Anonymous French Artist
Porta San Paolo, Rome
ca. 1750-1800
oil on canvas
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham

Louis Gauffier
Portrait of Godfrey Webster, 4th Baronet, in Florence
1794
oil on canvas
Battle Abbey, Sussex

Pierre-Henri de Valenciennes
Mercury and Argus
1793
oil on panel
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham

Anonymous French Artist
Portrait of a Lady
ca. 1770
oil on canvas
Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Anne Vallayer-Coster
Portrait of an Elderly Lady with her Daughter
1775
oil on canvas
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham

from The Wings of the Dove

That fact the lady of Lancaster Gate had up to this moment, as we know, enshrouded, and her friend's quick question had produced a change in her face. She blinked – then looked at the question hard; after which, whether she had inadvertently betrayed herself or had only reached a decision and then been affected by the quality of Mrs. Stringham's surprise, she accepted all results. What took place in her for Susan Shepherd was not simply that she made the best of them, but that she suddenly saw more in them to her purpose than she could have imagined. A certain impatience in fact marked in her this transition: she had been keeping back, very hard, an important truth, and wouldn't have liked to hear that she hadn't concealed it cleverly. Susie nevertheless felt herself pass as not a little of a fool with her for not having thought of it. What Susie indeed, however, most thought of at present, in the quick, new light of it, was the wonder of Kate's dissimulation. She had time for that view while she waited for an answer to her cry. "Kate thinks she cares. But she's mistaken. And no one knows it." These things, distinct and responsible, were Mrs. Lowder's retort. Yet they weren't all of it. "You don't know it – that must be your line. Or rather your line must be that you deny it utterly."
        "Deny that she cares for him?"
        "Deny that she so much as thinks that she does. Positively and absolutely. Deny that you've so much as heard of it."
        Susie faced this new duty. "To Milly, you mean – if she asks?"
        "To Millie, naturally. No one else will ask."
        Well," said Mrs. Stringham after a moment, "Milly won't."
        Mrs. Lowder wondered. "Are you sure?"
        "Yes, the more I think of it. And luckily for me. I lie badly."
        "I lie well, thank God."

– Henry James (1902)

Anne Vallayer-Coster
Garden Still Life with Bust of Ceres
1774
oil on canvas
National Trust, Basildon Park, Berkshire

Jacques-Joachim Soignie
Still Life
ca. 1770
oil on canvas
Middlesbrough Institute of Modern Art

attributed to Louis-Gabriel Blanchet
Portrait of the painter James Barry
ca. 1766-70
oil on canvas
Royal Society of Arts, London

Anonymous French Artist
Self Portrait
ca. 1725-75
oil on canvas
Bristol Museum and Art Gallery

Jacques-Henri Sablet
The Happy Family
1793
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

Jacques-Henri Sablet
The Fortune Teller
1784-85
oil on canvas
Scottish National Gallery, Edinburgh

follower of Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
Diana and Endymion
ca. 1760-65
oil on canvas (overdoor)
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham

follower of Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée
Two Muses
ca. 1760-65
oil on canvas (overdoor)
Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, County Durham

Pierre-Jacques Volaire
Vesuvius erupting at Night
ca. 1770-80
oil on canvas
Compton Verney, Warwickshire

Pierre-Jacques Volaire
Eruption of Vesuvius by Moonlight
1774
oil on canvas
Compton Verney, Warwickshire