Madame Bergeret
François Boucher·possibly 1766
Historical Context
Madame Bergeret (possibly 1766), at the National Gallery of Art, is a portrait of a woman from the wealthy Bergeret family — prominent French financiers and art patrons. Boucher's late portraits combine the decorative elegance of his mythological paintings with observed characterization, presenting his sitters as participants in the refined world his art created. The painting demonstrates Boucher's mastery of female portraiture, the sitter rendered with the luminous flesh tones and graceful composition that characterized his entire oeuvre.
Technical Analysis
The portrait combines the naturalistic demands of likeness with Boucher's decorative sensibility. The sitter's costume and setting are rendered with characteristic Rococo elegance, while the face shows slightly more individualized treatment than his mythological figures.
Provenance
Pierre Jacques Onésyme Bergeret de Grancourt [1715-1785], husband of the sitter, Paris; by inheritance to their elder son, Pierre Jacques Bergeret de Grancourt [1742-1807], Cassan; by inheritance to his stepson (the son of his second wife, Catherine Julie Xavier Poisson de la Chabeaussière, by her first marriage), Ange Philibert de la Girennerie, Cassan; by inheritance to his aunt (a sister of his mother), Barbe Françoise Victoire Poisson de la Chabeaussière Cotillon de Torcy; by inheritance to her daughter, Françoise Julie Cotillon de Torcy Le Bos de Sainte Croix; by inheritance to her daughter, Angélique Le Bos de Sainte Croix, comtesse Fontaine de Resbecq; by inheritance to the Resbecq family; sold by 1920 to (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[1] gift 1946 to NGA. [1] For further clarification, see the discussion by Alastair Laing in _François Boucher (1703-1770)_, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; Detroit Institute of Arts; Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, Paris; New York, 1986: 229-233. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1313.
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