Family Portrait
1756
Artist, French, 1727 - 1775

We don’t know who this family is, but the inscription on the lid of the box on the floor tells us the date: April 1, 1756. It was a tradition in 18th-century France to exchange gifts on April 1, and this wealthy family has gathered around the mother’s dressing table to shower her with presents. This intimate and informal work is different from earlier European portraits. Typically, family portraits celebrated lineage, social status, and patriarchal authority. Here, Drouais expresses a new, modern ideal of the family: an emotional unit bound by mutual affection and the pleasures of luxury.
Artwork overview
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Medium
oil on canvas
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Credit Line
-
Dimensions
overall: 244 x 195 cm (96 1/16 x 76 3/4 in.)
framed: 281.9 x 224.8 x 21 cm (111 x 88 1/2 x 8 1/4 in.) -
Accession
1946.7.4
More About this Artwork

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Artwork history & notes
Provenance
(Wertheimer, London);[1] purchased 1889 by Samuel Cunliffe-Lister, 1st baron Masham [1815-1906], Swinton Park, near Bedale, Yorkshire;[2] by inheritance to his son, Samuel Cunliffe Cunliffe-Lister, 2nd baron Masham [1857-1917], Swinton Park; by inheritance to his brother, John Cunliffe Cunliffe-Lister, 3rd baron Masham [1867-1924], Swinton Park; by inheritance to his cousin, Lady Lloyd-Greame [née Mary Constance Boynton, later Viscountess Swinton, d. 1974], Swinton Park; purchased November 1936 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris, stock no, 29845);[3] purchased 1942 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[4] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] Writers about the painting have proposed that it may have been the picture entitled La Toilette which was featured in the 10 March 1845 sale of the Marquis de Cypierre, or that it had belonged to the music hall singer and impresario, Aristide Bruant (1851-1925) before its acquisition by Wertheimer. Neither claim can at present be substantiated.
"Wertheimer" was the dealer Charles J. Wertheimer of London and Paris, who also owned for a time Jean Antoine Watteau's Ceres (Summer) (NGA 1961.9.50). Viscount Swinton, in a letter of 1 June 1950 to Fern Rusk Shapley (in NGA curatorial files), related that Wertheimer had refused to disclose to his wife's grandfather the name of the previous owner. He reported an uncorroborated tale according to which the husband in the painting was a banker to Louis XV who had tried to monopolize the French wheat market and had thereby brought disgrace upon his family. He goes on to state that the reputed name of the sitter was a "M. de Paris."
[2] The painting is listed in a Duveen Brothers "Callers Book" in an entry for 21 September 1925, when Edward Duveen, Captain Ernest Duveen, and Walter Dowdeswell visited Sir Philip Cunliffe-Lister (1884-1972) and saw the following painting by Drouais: "Large picture of an unknown lady and gentleman and child - full-length, lifesize. This is a most important picture, and nothing seems to be known about it except that Lady Cunliffe-Lister says it was bought from Wertheimer" (Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Duveen Archive; copy in NGA curatorial files). Viscount Swinton confirmed this information and supplied the date of purchase from Wertheimer in his 1950 letter (see note 1).
[3] Lady Lloyd-Greame was the daughter of Rev. Charles Ingram William Boynton (d. 1928) and Mary Eubank Cunliffe-Lister (d. 1896), herself the daughter of the 1st baron Masham. In 1912, she married Sir Philip Lloyd-Greame (1884-1972), who assumed the surname of Cunliffe-Lister in 1924 after the death of the 3rd baron Masham; he later became the Viscount Swinton (1935) and 1st earl of Swinton in 1955. The Duveen Brothers Records document the firm's ultimately successful effort to purchase the painting that begin by at least 14 May 1925, before the visit described in note 1, when Lady Cunliffe-Lister told Duveen's representative that "this picture [would be] the last she would sell" (telegram from Ernest Duveen, London, to Duveen Brothers, New York, and other documents; Duveen Brothers Records, Getty Research Institute Library, Los Angeles, accession no. 960015, reel 92, box 237, folder 5; copies and transcriptions in NGA curatorial files). Also Duveen NY Stockbook no. 19, no. 29845 (also copies NGA curatorial files).
[4] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/988.
Associated Names
Exhibition History
1902
Exhibition of a Selection of Works by French and English Painters of the Eighteenth Century, Art Gallery of the Corporation of London, 1902, no. 18.
1925
Loan Exhibition of Pictures by Old Masters, Thos. Agnew & Sons, London, 1925, no. 9 as, A Family Group.
1936
Masterpieces from the Collections of Yorkshire and Durham, City Art Gallery, Leeds, 1936, no. 29.
1937
Chefs d'oeuvre de L'art français, Palais National Des Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 152, as Portrait de Famille.
1940
Masterpieces of Art. European & American Paintings 1500-1900, New York World's Fair, 1940, no. 197, repro. as A Family Group of the Louis XV Period.
1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 769.
1994
A Gift to America: Masterpieces of European Painting from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Seattle Art Museum; Calif. Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, 1994-1995, no. 53.
Bibliography
1902
Phillips, Claude. "French and English Art at the Guildhall." Daily Telegraph (21 June 1902).
1906
Gabillot, Claude. "Les trois Drouais." Paris, 1906: 89. Reprint of Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 3, 34 (1905); ser. 3, 35 (1906).
1913
Graves, Algernon. A Century of Loan Exhibitions, 1813-1912. 5 vols. London, 1913-1915: 1(1913):302.
1925
Collins-Baker, C. H. "Old Masters at Messrs. Agnew." The Burlington Magazine 46, no. 267 (June 1925): 300.
1937
Huyghe, René. La peinture française du XIVe au XVIIe siècle: (figures et portraits). Paris, 1937: pl. 16 (detail of girl's head).
1940
"Masterpieces of Art Provide Brilliant Display at New York Fair." Art Digest 17 (1 June 1940): 7.
Frankfurter, Alfred M. "383 Masterpieces of Art: The World's Fair Exhibition of Paintings of Four Centuries Loaned from American Public and Private Collections." Art News 38 (25 May 1940): 37, 64, repro.
1944
"Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5.
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 112, color repro.
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 78, repro. no. 80.
"One of the Greatest Donations of XVIIIth Century French Painting Ever Received by a Museum - The Kress Collection." Illustrated London News 115, no. 2992 (26 August 1944): 248, 249, repro.
Richardson, E.P. "A Family Group by Drouais in the National Gallery." Art Quarterly 7 (Summer 1944): 224-227, repro.
Frankfurter, Alfred. "French Masterpieces for the National Gallery." Art News 42, no. 10 (August 1944): 8, 24, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 165, repro.
1951
King, Marian. Portfolio Number 3. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1951: no. 7, color repro.
1956
Einstein, Lewis. "Looking at French Eighteenth-Century Pictures in Washington." _Gazette des Beaux Arts_6th ser., 47, no. 1048-1049 (May-June 1956): 230-231, n. 17, fig. 14.
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 39, 50, fig. 18, pl. 128 (detail).
1959
Cooke, Hereward Lester. French Paintings of the 16th-18th Centuries in the National Gallery of Art. Washington, D.C., 1959 (Booklet Number Four in Ten Schools of Painting in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.): 36, color repro.
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 360, repro.
1963
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. New York, 1963 (reprinted 1964 in French, German, and Spanish): 317, repro.
1965
Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 43.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:318, color repro.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 37, repro.
Verlet, Pierre. The Eighteenth-Century House in France: Society, Decoration, Furniture. Rutland, Vermont, 1968: 85, pl. 58.
1973
Duncan, Carol. "Happy Mothers and Other New Ideas in French Art." The Art Bulletin 55 (December 1973): 578, 579, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 110, repro.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 322-323, fig. 285, as Family Portrait (April Fool's Day 1756).
1979
Sutton, Denys. "Robert Langton Douglas. Part IV." Apollo 110 (July 1979): 49 [241].
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 326, no. 433, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 135, repro.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 171, repro.
1995
Ribeiro, Aileen. The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750 to 1820. New Haven and London, 1995: 35, 50, fig. 35.
1996
Posner, Donald. "The 'Duchesse de Velours' and Her Daughter: A Masterpiece by Nattier and Its Historical Context." Metropolitan Museum of Art Journal 31 (1996): 139, fig. 11.
Sahut, Marie-Catherine. "Louis-Michel Van Loo...Potrait du marquis de Margny (1727-1781) et de sa femme, née Marie-Françoise Constance Julie Filleul (1751-1822)." In Musée du Louvres: nouvelles acquisitions du département des pictures 1991-1995. Paris, 1996: 154, repro.
1997
Donzel, Catherine. Le Livre des Fleurs, France, 1997: 85, repro.
1999
Ranum, Orest. "Intimacy in French Eighteenth-Century Family Portraits." Word and Image 6, no. 4 (October-December 1999): 359, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 251, no. 202, color repro.
2009
Conisbee, Philip, et al. French Paintings of the Fifteenth through the Eighteenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 2009: no. 27, 136-142, color repro.
2011
Chrisman-Campbell, Kimberly. "Dressing to Impress: The Morning Toilette and the Fabrication of Femininity." In Bremer-David, Charissa, ed., Paris: Life and Luxury in the Eighteenth Century. Exh. cat., J. Paul, Getty Museum, Los Angeles, 2011: 58-59, color repro.
2023
Lasic, Barbara. "A transatlantic hybrid and a 'Fauve de la Curiosité':: Edouard Jonas (1883-1961), dealer and curator." Conalghi Studies Journal 12 (March 2023): 61, fig. 5.
Inscriptions
lower right on box lid: Fs.Drouais.ce 1 avril. 1756
On stretcher: labels, "G11940 / K Foundation" and "11208"; small label, mounted on red cardboard and encapsulated, "DROUAIS / 29735 H 96" W 76 3/4" / 29845"
Wikidata ID
Q20178136