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Overview

Like Jacques Onésime de Bergeret, Lalive de Jully (1725-79) was an influential collector, amateur, and painter in the Parisian art world of the 1750s and 1760s. One of Jean-Baptiste Greuze's first patrons, Lalive is depicted seated on a chair he had commissioned as part of a suite of furniture à la grecque. This furniture subtly reveals Lalive's avant-garde taste in rejecting the curvilinear forms of the rococo in favor of rectilinear shapes and archaeological decor before the full flowering of the neoclassical style.

Greuze placed Lalive in the center of the canvas; his torso twists toward the harp, as his head, shown in three-quarter pose, turns to the viewer. He is casually attired in a white silk dressing gown, a scarf around his neck, and his britches unbuttoned at the knees. The captivating expression, a faint smile and slightly raised eyebrows, further enhances the contrived informality of the portrait. The emphasis on the face and hands counterbalances the rigid series of parallel vertical lines that define the space.

The prominent display of the harp, accompanied by the furniture with the portfolio of drawings and statue of the Erythrean Sibyl in the background, suggests that Greuze has depicted Lalive as a new Apollo, alluding to his patronage of the arts.

Provenance

The sitter, Ange Laurent de La Live de Jully [1725-1779], Paris, probably 1759;[1] probably by inheritance to his second daughter, Louise de La Live, comtesse de Fezensac [d. 1829 or 1832]; by inheritance to her son, Raymond Aimery de Montesquiou, duc de Montesquiou-Fezensac [1784-1867]; by inheritance to his daughter, Oriane Henriette de Montesquiou, vicomtesse [Charles] de Goyon [d. 1887], by 1874 until at least 1885; Alexandre Léon Joseph, comte de Laborde [b. 1853, a descendant of the sitter's brother-in-law], Paris, by 1927; purchased January 1937 by (Duveen Brothers, Inc., London, New York, and Paris);[2] sold 1942 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1946 to NGA.

[1] The painting is undocumented between the catalogue of La Live de Jully's collection published in 1764 (Catalogue historique du cabinet de peinture et sculpture françoise de M. De Lalive, p. 55), and its exhibition in Paris in 1874, when it was in the collection of the vicomtesse Charles de Goyon, a direct descendant of the sitter. The vicomtesse also lent the painting to an exhibition in Paris in 1885. Munhall (in Edgar Munhall, Jean-Baptiste Greuze 1725-1805, exh. cat., The Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; The California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon; Hartford and Lille, 1976: 64) follows the Duveen provenance that accompanied the painting on its acquisition by the Kress Foundation in 1942. Eisler (Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian, Oxford, 1977: 327, no. 29) comments that there is no "documentary foundation for most of the sequence" between 1764 and 1874 and follows the provenance in L. Clément de Ris, Les Amatuers de Autrefois, Paris, 1877: 401-402. The Clément de Ris-Eisler provenance, in spite of some innaccuracies, remains tenable, especially in its credible presumption that the painting remained with La Live de Jully's heirs. Martha Hepworth of the Getty Provenance Index kindly helped clarify this issue and corrected the Clément de Ris-Eisler provenance (letter of 11 July 1989 in NGA curatorial files).

[2] The painting was lent by Laborde to exhibitions in 1927 and 1935. Duveen Brothers' Paris office cabled on 30 December 1936, asking the New York office if they were interested in "Master's finest man portrait." The purchase followed quickly, as indicated by a further cable of 9 January 1937, requesting cash to pay for the painting and by an entry in the dealer's General Stock Books that reads: "GREUZE - Mons Ange Laurent de la Live de Jully Playing the Harp. Purchased from Mr. Laporte [sic] January 1937." (Duveen Brothers Records, Research Library, The Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles, accession no. 960015, reel 66, box 186, and reel 103, box 248, folder 13; copies in NGA curatorial files).

[3] See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/247.

Exhibition History
1759
Salon of 1759, Paris, no. 108.
1874
Exposition des ouvrages de peinture au profit de la colonisation de l'Algérie par les Alsaciens-Lorrains, Palais de la Présidence du Corps Legislatif, Paris, 1874, no. 207.
1878
Exposition Universelle. Portraits nationaux du XVIIIe siècle, Palais du Trocadéro, Paris, 1878, no. 701, repro.
1885
Exposition de tableaux, statues et objects d'art au profit de l'oeuvre des orphelins d'Alsace-Lorraine, Musée du Louvre, Paris, 1885, no. 242.
1927
Les grands salons littéraires, Musée Carnavalet, Paris, 1927, no. 173, repro.
1931
Possibly Exposition de l'art Français, Société des Amateurs d'Art, Paris, 1931, no. 193 (according to the Duveen Brothers prospectus, but unconfirmed).
1935
Exposition de l'art français au XVIIIe siècle, Palais de Charlottenborg, Copenhagen, 1935, no. 86.
1939
Five Centuries of History Mirrored in Five Centuries of French Art, Pavillon de la France, World's Fair, New York, 1939-1940, no. 227.
1946
Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 773.
1976
Jean-Baptiste Greuze 1725-1805, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut; California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco; Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon, 1976-1977, no. 22, repro. (shown only in Hartford).
1986
A Magic Mirror: The Portrait in France 1700-1900, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 1986-1987, no. 12, repro.
2010
L'Antiquité rêvée. Innovations et résistances au XVIIIe siècle [Antiquity Revived. Neoclassical Art in the Eighteenth Century], Musée du Louvre, Paris; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, 2010-2011, no. 44 (French cat.), no. 28 (English cat.), repros.
Bibliography
1944
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. Masterpieces of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1944: 118, color repro.
1944
Frankfurter, Alfred M. The Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1944: 78, repro. no. 79
1944
"Kress Makes Important Donation of French Painting to the Nation." Art Digest 18, no. 19 (1 August 1944): 5, repro.
1945
Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 167, repro.
1948
Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4
1957
Shapley, Fern Rusk. Comparisons in Art: A Companion to the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. London, 1957 (reprinted 1959): 34, 36, 38, pl. 86.
1959
Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 361, repro.
1961
Eriksen, Svend. "Lalive de Jully's Furniture 'à la grecque.'" The Burlington Magazine 103 (1961): 340+ 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: 63.
1966
Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds. A Pageant of Painting from the National Gallery of Art. 2 vols. New York, 1966: 2:316, color repro.
1968
National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 55, repro.
1975
European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 164, repro.
1977
Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 325-328, fig. 289.
1977
Pope-Hennessy, John. "Completing the Account." Review of Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection, London 1977. Times Literary Supplement no. 3,927 (17 June 1977).
1984
Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 338, no. 452, color repro.
1985
European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 189, repro.
1992
National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 172, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 256-257, no. 208, color repro.
2005
The Arts of France from François Ier to Napoléon Ier. A Centennial Celebration of Wildenstein's Presence in New York. Exh. cat. Wildenstein & Co., Inc., New York, 2005: 224-226, fig. 85a (not in the exhibition).
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. 54, 247-252, color repro.
2010
Godla, Joseph. "Beautiful Surroundings: The Frames of the Frick Collection." The Frick Collection's Members' Magazine (Winter 2010): 16.
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