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Jacques-Rolland Moreau
Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1665–1755)
French
18th century
1712
Object Place: France
Medium/Technique
Stone; Marble
Dimensions
Overall: 92.7 x 62.5 x 37.5 cm (36 1/2 x 24 5/8 x 14 3/4 in.)
Credit Line
Frank B. Bemis Fund, William Francis Warden Fund, and Museum purchase with funds bequeathed by Genevieve Gray Young in memory of Patience Young and Patience Gray Young
Accession Number1998.395
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope
ClassificationsSculpture
Lemoyne was a prominent sculptor for the court of King Louis XIV of France. Jacques-Rolland Moreau was a member of a wealthy bourgeois family who was counselor to the king and high treasurer for wars. The sitter wears an elaborate, curled wig and an open, lace-trimmed shirt with a heavy drapery wrapped around his shoulders. The animated style of the bust and its technical virtuosity reflect the influence of the great Italian Baroque sculptor Gian Lorenzo Bernini, who had worked briefly for the court of Louis XIV in the 1660s.
InscriptionsJ-L Le Moyne and J.R. Moreau, 1712
ProvenanceCohen Collection. Maison Laurent (dealer), Paris. By 1923 until about 1956, Stettiner et Cie., Paris [see note 1]; about 1956, sold by Stettiner to a private collection, France; March 4, 1989, anonymous (French private collection) sale, Sotheby's, Monaco, lot 267. By 1997, Agnew's, London; 1998, sold by Agnew's to the MFA. (Accession Date: October 21, 1998)
NOTES:
[1] Early provenance information is given in the exhibition catalogue "Les artistes du Salon de 1737" (Grand Palais, Paris, May-June, 1930), pp. 36-37, cat. no. 134. It was first published as being with Stettiner by Louis Réau, "Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1665-1755)," Revue de l'art 43 (1923), pp. 195, 266-268. Stettiner lent it to the exhibition "Five Centuries of History Mirrored in Five Centuries of French Art," New York World's Fair, 1939, cat. no. 169. According to Agnew's at the time of the acquisition, the bust was still with Stettiner around 1956, when it was sold to the French private collection that sold it in 1989.
NOTES:
[1] Early provenance information is given in the exhibition catalogue "Les artistes du Salon de 1737" (Grand Palais, Paris, May-June, 1930), pp. 36-37, cat. no. 134. It was first published as being with Stettiner by Louis Réau, "Jean-Louis Lemoyne (1665-1755)," Revue de l'art 43 (1923), pp. 195, 266-268. Stettiner lent it to the exhibition "Five Centuries of History Mirrored in Five Centuries of French Art," New York World's Fair, 1939, cat. no. 169. According to Agnew's at the time of the acquisition, the bust was still with Stettiner around 1956, when it was sold to the French private collection that sold it in 1989.