Singerie: The Dance
Christophe Huet·c. 1739
Historical Context
Christophe Huet's Singerie series represents the height of Rococo whimsy, a genre in which monkeys enact human pastimes with satirical glee. The Dance panel depicts costumed primates performing courtly dances, a mode of gentle mockery aimed at fashionable French society of the 1730s. Singeries had flourished since the seventeenth century, when Teniers popularized them, but Huet elevated the form into a vehicle for interior decoration at the grandest level, working for aristocratic patrons who delighted in self-aware irony. These panels were part of a suite probably made for an hôtel particulier, blending ornamental function with social wit. The series survives as one of the most complete and refined examples of the genre in an American collection.
Technical Analysis
Huet applies paint in thin, fluid layers characteristic of Rococo decorative work. The palette is light and airy — pale blues, pinks, and ivory — and the figures are rendered with delicate calligraphic linework. Composition is asymmetrical, with figures distributed across a shallow stage backed by feathery foliage.
Provenance
Commissioned by François Jules Duvaucel [1672-1739] for a salon in the Château de La Norville, France; remained in the château through successive owners until sometime between 1901 and 1906; (Fauché, Paris), by 1907;[1] purchased 1922 through (André Carlhian, Paris) by Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice [1875-1956] and his wife, Eleanor Elkins Widener Rice [1861-1937], for the dining room of their Fifth Avenue manion, New York;[2] by inheritance 1956 to Mrs. Rice's children, George D. Widener, Jr. [1889-1971] and Eleanor Widener Dixon [1891-1966, Mrs. Fitz Eugene Dixon]; gift 1957 to NGA. [1] The history of the decoration of the Château de La Norville is thoroughly described by Bruno Pons, _Grands décors français, 1650-1800: reconstitués en Angleterre, aux Etats-Unis, en Amérique du Sud et en France_, Dijon, 1995: 221-426. See also Abbé A.E. Genty, _Histoire de la Norville et de sa seigneurie_, Brussels and Geneva, 1885: 112-129. [2] Mrs. Rice was born Eleonor Elkins in Philadelphia. Her first husband was George Dunton Widener, who perished with their elder son, Harry, in the sinking of the _Titanic_ in 1912. She married Dr. Alexander Hamilton Rice in 1915. Her two other children with Widener inherited the New York residence after Dr. Rice's death. Records of the Carlhian firm are in the Special Collections of the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, accession no. 930092. Copies of documents referring to the wall paneling are in the NGA curatorial files; see in particular the letter of 6 July 1923, from André Carlhian to Mrs. Rice, in which he tells her that "the Pineau boiserie which you bought from Fauché comes from the Chateau de la Norville, near Arpajon - about 20 miles from Paris." Both the six Huet paintings (NGA 1957.7.1-6) and the paneling (_boiserie_) by Pineau were given to the National Gallery of Art; the latter is NGA 1957.7.7.
