Many thanks to lime plasterer extraordinaire Ben Hubert for alerting me to this.
A Recently Discovered Portrait Portrait of the Sculptor Louis Roubiliac (1702-1762).
Andréa Soldi (1703 - 1771).
Canvas Height: 77 cm Width: 66 cm .
Coming up for auction in Paris at Gros et Delettrez.
Lot 39 19 December 2024.
For much on the portraits of Roubiliac see my previous post -
https://english18thcenturyportraitsculpture.blogspot.com/2019/01/bust-of-roubiliac-or-not.html
One of my first posts on this blog -
This portrait repeats the composition of that at the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London, signed and dated by Soldi 1751 (canvas 97.5 x 82.5 cm).
There are several differences in his dress in this portrait notably in the colour of the frogged jacket and that of the fur hat.
Perhaps the most important variation is the terracotta model on the stand on the left:
In the Dulwich version, there is a maquette for the figure of Charity for the tomb of John Montagu, second Duke of Montagu,
An academic study of a man, his arms folded on his chest. Another replica is kept at the Garrick Club in London, where Roubillac worked on the bust of the actor David Garrick. Born in Florence,
Soldi travelled in the 1730s in the Ottoman Empire. In Aleppo and especially in Constantinople, he made portraits of English merchants of the Levant Company in oriental costumes.
He enjoyed great success upon his arrival in London in 1735, his style contrasting with the tradition of Vandyckian portraits or those of John Vanderbank who held the market for portraits of the aristocracy.
Malcolm Baker of the University of California, Riverside, points out the existence of two sculpted studies in Roubiliac's
posthumous sale catalogue in 1762 that could potentially correspond to the one
in this portrait.
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The Soldi Portrait of Roubiliac at Dulwich.
Signed A. Soldi / Pinx. Ao. 1751.
Acquisition - Fairfax Murray Gift, 1911.
The resolution of this image isn't great but is the best available!
............................
Louis Francois Roubiliac at work on a bust of David Garrick.
Andrea Soldi.
Oil on canvas.
1757.
Dimensions -Height: 112.4cm Width: 91.5cm height (frame): 131cm width (frame): 108cm.
Inscribed -
"Andrea Soldi / Pinxt ft / 1757 / 8" (grey paint
b. r.)
Provenance -
Presented by Alderson Burrell Horne, 1909.
Pity about the low resolution image courtesy - Garrick Club website -
https://garrick.ssl.co.uk/object-g0727
For more Soldi portraits see -
https://artuk.org/discover/artworks/search/2024--actor:soldi-andrea-c-17031771/page/2
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In 1761 Carpentier exhibited an Half Length Portrait of Roubiliac at The Society of Artists.
Adrien Carpentier.
1762.
Oil on canvas.
H 125.7 x W 100.3 cm.
National Portrait Gallery.
Currently on long-term loan to Beningbrough Hall, Yorkshire.
Bought 1870, from Mrs J. Noseda; presumably from the collection of General Durant of Tong Castle, Shropshire, who purchased the site, 1764, of an older castle there; listed, 1825, as in the possession of his son; [9] at Christie's sale, 1856, bought in; Tong Castle sale, Christie's, 20 April 1870, lot 42, bought Mrs J. Noseda.
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Louis-Francois Roubiliac Modelling His Monument to Shakespeare.
https://collections.britishart.yale.edu/catalog/tms:596
......................................
Louis Francois Roubiliac.
Paul Mellon Collection, Yale Centre for British Art.
Yale suggests c.1760?
Provenance - his daughter, Amelia Roubiliac; desc. to his great-grandson, Francois Roubiliac Conder, 1870; his daughter, Maude Reignier, Mrs Julian Lousada 192B; her son Sir Anthony Lousada (1907— 1994);
London, Christie's, 20,111.1953, Lot 53, as by LaTour. David Drey, London, 1976; London dealer Cyril Humphris; acqu. Paul Mellon, .Xl.1976).
The terra-cotta sculpture on which Roubiliac leans bears a strong resemblance to the head of the Britannia figure in the sculptor's 1753 monument
to Admiral Sir Peter Warren in Westminster Abbey; it was also described as the
head of Medusa by a nineteenth-century reviewer.
One of these pastel portraits must have been that of Roubiliac -
"Mr Vispré, a celebrated painter in crayons has two portraits : one of them the famous sculptor Roubiliac, the man himself alive breathing and just going to speak: most admirable.....and himself never in marble cut better.""
from Imperial Magazine or Complete Monthly Intelligensia 1760, p.246. -
and this is most likely to have been the portrait below.
For Vispre see -
Vispre. -
Victor mentioned by as a native Of France. Who practised miniature painting in Dublin, in 1782. Redgrave also mentions him, and States that he Sent small portraits from to the Spring Gardens exhibitions from 1770 to 1778. Both authorities mention brother, Whom Francis Zaverius, aspainting in oil on glass, and also residing in Dublin ; but neither mention engraving.
Nagler names T. X. only, Whom he states to have been born in Paris, in lived there for some years, then went to London, and died about 1790; also, that he engraved in mezzotinto and stipple.
Nicole Céleste Roubiliac (née de Reignier), third wife of the sculptor Louis François Roubiliac.
Francois Xavier Vispré, ca.1760.
Oil Portrait, half-length.
When Roubiliac met her, his future wife was helping her brother run an artists' supply shop in Covent Garden.
See Katharine A. Esdaile's Life and Works of Louis François Roubiliac, Oxford, 1928, where this portrait is described (p.145) and reproduced (Pl.XLV): it was at that time in the possession of the sculptor's descendants.
Vispré was a friend and neighbour of Roubiliac's, and was one of
the witnesses to his will.
James Regnier (active 1710, died 1752),
Nicole Celeste Regnier (active 1753-1769), M. Regnier 1770. At Long Acre, London 1710, The Golden Ball, Newport St, Long Acre by 1712-1772 or later.
James (or Jacques) Regnier (?1692-1752), a Huguenot seal engraver and printseller, can perhaps be identified with the Jacques Regnier born in 1692, the son of Alexandre Regnier and Marie Lapere, and christened at the Church of Le Carré and Berwick St (Minet 1921 p.2).
He was in business by 1710. He advertised his Picture Shop in Newport St in 1720, together with the drawing school at the same house, where watercolours were sold (Post Man and the Historical Account 9 April 1720). He also advertised as a seal engraver (e.g., Daily Courant 13 March 1712) but he may have given up this business by 1729 when he offered for sale a set of punches, fit for a seal engraver (Daily Courant 3 February 1729). In the same advertisement, he advertised ‘all Sorts of the finest Water-Colours, Dry Crayons, or Pastels, Hair and Black Lead Pencils, Red, Black and White Chaulk… and Paper for Drawings’.
He also
advertised as a printseller (e.g., Daily Courant 22 April 1730, see Heal coll.
100.60). He was buried on 15 August 1752 (Murdoch 2021 p.301, n.56, see Sources
below).
On a trade card, probably from the 1750s, ‘Regnier’
advertised among other goods, ‘All sorts of the finest Water Colours in Shells,
ye Best crayons & Straining Frames for Painting, the best Lead pencils,
Black White & red Chalk, French & Dutch Drawing paper, Portcrayons’
(Heal coll. 100.60, repr. Krill 2002 p.119; Guildhall Library).
Regnier was succeeded in business by his niece, Celeste Regnier or Reignier, who can be found in Westminster rate books in Great Newport St, 1753-64 and then as Celeste Roubiliac until 1771.
She advertised artists’ equipment, varnish for japanning and colour prints in 1754 (Public Advertiser 25 July 1754, see Clayton 1997 p.111); she announced that she had removed five doors higher in Newport St in 1754 (Public Advertiser 1 August 1754).
Celeste Regnier’s portrait was drawn in pastel by F.X. Vispré (sold Christie’s 20 March 1953 lot 120).
She married a fellow Huguenot, the sculptor Louis François Roubiliac (1702-62), apparently his fourth wife, in November 1756 (Gazeteer and London Daily Advertiser 24 November 1756), and remained in Great Newport St until 1772 (Survey of London, vol.34, The Parish of St Anne Soho, 1966, p.345, available online at www.british-history.ac.uk).
An artist, Elizabeth Carmichael, used her premises as an accommodation address in 1768 and 1769 when exhibiting at the Society of Artists and another artist, Robert Carver, used “Mr Regnier’s” as an accommodation address in 1770. The same year, it was “M. Regnier” who was named in advertisements for the Regnier print business.
Celeste took as her second husband Benjamin Taylor whom she married
in 1767 (Murdoch 2021 p.301, n.57). As a printseller, late of Great Newport St,
he was made bankrupt in 1772 (London Gazette 21 April 1772).
Sources: Tessa Murdoch, ‘Louis François Roubiliac and his Huguenot Connections’, Proceedings of the Huguenot Society, vol.24, 1983, pp.40-2, naming Nicole Celeste Regnier; Clayton 1997 pp.5, 109-11; Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of Pastellists before 1800, at www.pastellists.com/Suppliers.html#R , accessed 20 December 2021; Tessa Murdoch, ‘The business practice of Louis François Roubiliac, 1752-62’, Sculpture Journal, vol.30, 2021, p.295, with further biographical details.
in the Public Advertiser on 25 July, 1 August and 15 August
1754 which chime with this trade card.
https://samuelgedge.com/GEDGEeCAT27.pdf - which includes an autograph invoice
on the back, by Celeste Regnier, dated 1765. She could have been reusing her
Uncle's card, but I think the listing of stock, and related adverts, indicate
this was her publication.
Painter (of miniatures) and printmaker (mezzotint and
aquatint), specialising in portraits in crayons. Began career in Paris, where
wrote (anonymously) 'Le moyen de devenir peintre en trois heures' in 1755 (on
glass transfer painting). In London by 1760 where exhibited RA 1760-77, 1780,
1783 and 1789; in Dublin 1777-80. Huguenot, and friendly with Roubiliac. His
work is classified as 'British' in the BM.
his younger brother Victor (doc.1763-78 when last recorded
in Dublin), with whom he was closely associated and worked. Victor is only
known as a painter of fruit on glass. Prints traditionally attributed to him
are here catalogued as by François Xavier.
Francis Xaverius Vispre and Mary Hunter were married at St
Anne's, Soho on 12.IV.1764.
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This Mezzotint below has traditionally been described as Mrs Vispre. - Mary Hunter
This is perhaps the Lady Three quarters exhibited at the Society of Arts annual Exhibition Cat.no 126.
Images courtesy British Museum.
https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/P_1902-1011-6082
Robert Wark,. Eighteenth-Century Studies 12, no. 1 (1978):
119-22.
-1.jpg)
Comparison of the bust with the Dulwich Picture Gallery
portrait by Andreas Soldi c. 1751.
Comparison of the bust with the Yale Paul Melon Centre
Portrait of Roubiliac
by Francois Xavier Vispre.
Comparison of the bust with the Carpentier Portrait of c.
1761.
Comparison photograph of the stipple engraving of Thomas
Banks with the putative marble bust.
But the shape of his nose is confirmed by other portraits
(see below).
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