Madame Le Fèvre de Caumartin as Hebe

1753

Jean-Marc Nattier

Artist, French, 1685 - 1766

Shown from the knees up, a woman sitting next to an eagle has pale skin and rosy cheeks, and she faces and looks at us in this vertical portrait painting. The woman takes up most of the height of the composition and her right arm, on our left, rests on what looks like a puffy, sand-colored cloud. Her long, light blond hair is pulled back but one long tendril rests over her right shoulder, on our left. White and pale pink roses are tucked into a string of white pearls pinned into her hair across top of her head. The woman gazes at us with hazel eyes under light gray brows, and her long nose and closed, pale pink lips are set in a heart-shaped face. The low neckline of her ivory-white chemise wraps across her shoulders, and a small bouquet with a peach-colored rose and delicate white flowers is tucked into a bow at the front. The chemise has voluminous, elbow-length sleeves and is belted with a single strand of white pearls. Robin's egg-blue fabric is fastened with a gold pin on her right arm, to our left, and it falls in folds across her lap. Light reflecting off the fabric creates a sheen, suggesting it is silk or satin. Her right arm is bent to hold a pitcher over a small bowl in her other hand. The pitcher and bowl are both iridescent silver edged with gold. The body of the pitcher is decorated with people wearing robes, perhaps dancing. The eagle nestles near her left elbow, to our right. We see the upper half of its brown body and curved wing. Its narrow head and parted, hooked beak face our left in profile. The sky behind the woman transitions from a warm, golden yellow behind her to celestial blue along the top edge of the painting. Wispy bands of clouds rise to meet a larger smoke-gray cloud at the top that spreads out to frame her head. The painting is created with blended strokes, giving it a soft appearance, especially in the woman’s face and hands. The artist signed and dated the painting in the lower left corner, “Nattier pinxit. 1753.”

Media Options

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On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 53

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Samuel H. Kress Collection

  • Dimensions

    overall: 102.5 x 81.5 cm (40 3/8 x 32 1/16 in.)
    framed: 126.4 x 106.7 x 13 cm (49 3/4 x 42 x 5 1/8 in.)

  • Accession

    1946.7.13

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Traditionally said to have belonged to Odette-Marie de Montesquiou-Fezensac [1853-1874], wife of comte Antoine de Gramont d'Aster [1846-1894]; presumably by inheritance to her brother, Louis-Paul-Anatole, marquis de Montesquiou-Fezensac [1857-1883]; by inheritance to his widow [née Claude-Étiennette-Marie-Octavie de Sauvan d'Aramon, 1864-1936];[1] (Wildenstein & Co., Paris, New York, and London); sold December 1944 to the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[2] gift 1946 to NGA.
[1] The provenance provided by Wildenstein to the Kress Foundation also includes the name of the comtesse Fleury, with no additional information. The picture was not included in any known Gramont or Fleury sales; see Colin Eisler, Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation: European Schools Excluding Italian, Oxford, 1977: 311 nn 7 and 8.
[2] The memorandum of agreement between Wildenstein & Co. and the Samuel H. Kress Foundation for the sale of ten paintings, including Mme. de Caumartin by Jean Marc Nattier, is dated 28 December 1944 (copy in NGA curatorial files).
[2] The Gramont, Fleury, and Montesquiou names also appear in the provenance provided by Wildenstein; see letter dated 14 April 1999 in NGA curatorial files. See also The Kress Collection Digital Archive, https://kress.nga.gov/Detail/objects/1315.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1946

  • Recent Additions to the Kress Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1946, no. 785.

Bibliography

1928

  • Dimier, Louis. Les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle. Histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres. 2 vols. Paris, 1928-1930: 2, no. 64.

1930

  • Huard, Georges. "Nattier, 1685 à 1766." In Louis Dimier. Les peintres français du XVIIIe siècle. Histoire des vies et catalogue des oeuvres. 2 vols. Paris, 1928-1930: 124, no. 64.

1945

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1945 (reprinted 1947, 1949): 160, repro.

1946

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery. New York, 1946: 62, repro.

  • National Gallery of Art. Recent Additions to the Kress Collection. Washington, 1946: no. 785.

  • Frankfurter, Alfred M. “Supplement to the Kress Collection in the National Gallery.” Art News 44, no. 20 (February 1946): 78, repro.

1948

  • Wildenstein and Company. French XVIII Century Paintings. New York, 1948: 4.

1952

  • Cairns, Huntington, and John Walker, eds., Great Paintings from the National Gallery of Art. New York, 1952: 118, 119, color repro.

1956

  • Einstein, Lewis. “Looking at French Eighteenth-Century Pictures in Washington.” Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 47, no. 1048-1049 (May – June 1956): 229, n. 14, 227, repro.

1959

  • Paintings and Sculpture from the Samuel H. Kress Collection. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1959: 359, repro.

1965

  • Summary Catalogue of European Paintings and Sculpture. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1965: 95.

1968

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings and Sculpture, Illustrations. Washington, 1968: 84, repro.

  • Gandolfo, Giampaolo et al. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Great Museums of the World. New York, 1968: 73, color repro.

1971

  • Held, Julius Samuel, and Donald Posner. 17th and 18th Century Art: Baroque Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. New York, 1971: 319, fig. 327.

1975

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Summary Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1975: 252, repro.

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. New York, 1975: 343, no. 468, color repro.

1977

  • Eisler, Colin. Paintings from the Samuel H. Kress Collection: European Schools Excluding Italian. Oxford, 1977: 310-311, fig. 276.

1979

  • Grate, Pontus. "Nattier and the Goddess of Eternal Youth." Thought and Form, Nationalmuseum of Stockholm Bulletin, 3, no. 3 (1979): 152, 153, fig. 3.

1983

  • Walker, John. Portraits: 5,000 Years. New York, 1983: 191, fig. 219.

1984

  • Walker, John. National Gallery of Art, Washington. Rev. ed. New York, 1984: 341, no. 465, color repro.

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 291, repro.

1995

  • Garnier-Pelle, Nicole. Chantilly, Musée Condé: peintures du XVIIIe siècle (Inventaire des collections publiques françaises, no. 38). Paris, 1995: 101, under no. 50.

1996

  • Brenner, Carla. The Inquiring Eye: Classical Mythology in European Art. Teaching packet, National Gallery of Art. Washington, 1996: 28-29, repro.

1997

  • Woodall, Joanna, ed. Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Manchester, 1997: repro.

  • Nicholson, Kathleen. "The Ideology of Feminine 'Virtue': The Vestal Virgin in French Eighteenth-Century Allegorical Portraiture." In Portraiture: Facing the Subject. Joanna Woodall, ed. Manchester and New York, 1997: 53, fig. 10.

1999

  • Hugues, Laurent. "Deux portraitistes à l'épreuve de la critique." In "Nattier, peintre de la beauté: expositions à Versailles et Chantilly." Dossier de l'art 62 (November 1999): 46, 47, repro.

  • Salmon, Xavier. Jean-Marc Nattier 1685-1766. Exh. cat. Musée national des châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, Versailles, 1999-2000. Paris, 1999: 109, 111, under no. 21, fig. 2.

2003

  • Bryant, Julius. Kenwood: Paintings in the Iveagh Bequest. New Haven and London, 2003: 354, 355 fig. 3.

2005

  • Baillio, Joseph, et al. 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: 36, 78 (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. 74, 343-347, color repro.

Inscriptions

lower left: Nattier pinxit. / 1753.

Wikidata ID

Q20178060

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