A Pasha Having His Mistress's Portrait Painted (Primary Title)

Carle van Loo, French, 1705 - 1765 (Artist)

1737
French
oil on canvas
Unframed: 26 × 30 in. (66.04 × 76.2 cm)
Framed: 35 × 39 1/2 in. (88.9 × 100.33 cm)
59.20
Though set in an imaginary Turkish location, this painting probably alludes to a famous story from antiquity. Apelles, the greatest painter of his day, fell in love with Campaspe, the mistress of Alexander the Great. Apelles’s portrait of her was so beautiful that Alexander gave her to the artist, preferring to the painting to the original. The painter is self portrait of van Loo and the model is Christina Somis, who married van Loo in 1733.
Signed, lower left: "Carlo Van Loo"
Adolph D. and Wilkins C. Williams Fund
"Wyeth, Parrish, Rockwell and the European Narrative Tradition", Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA, June 9 - October 28, 2018

"America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting", National Gallery of Art, May 21 - August 20, 2017

“French Genre Painting in the Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard,” National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, June 6-Sep. 7, 2003; National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Oct. 12, 2003-Jan. 11, 2004

“Falling in Love Again,” VMFA, Philip Morris Gallery, July 1-Sep. 25, 1994

“A Glimpse of Rococo France: ‘The Amorous Proposal’ by Francois Le Moyne,” Clark Art Institute, Williamstown, MA, April 4-June 13, 1987

“Orientalism: The Near East in French Painting, 1800-1880,” Memorial Art Gallery, University of Rochester, N.Y., Nov. 4-Dec. 23, 1982

“Encounter I: Space,” Artmobile exhibition, Fall 1970-Spring 1971

“The World of Voltaire,” University of Michigan Museum of Art, Ann Arbor, March 30 - May 11, 1969, Cat. 89.

“The Age of Elegance and Grandeur,” Artmobile exhibition, Sep. 1967-Jan. 1968

Salon of 1737, Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Paris
Nolan, Dennis. Keepers of the Flame: Parrish, Wyeth, Rockwell and the Narrative Tradition. Stockbridge, MA: Norman Rockwell Museum, 2018, Color ill., pg. 162.

Jackall, Yuriko, et. al. America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting. Exh. Cat. Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2017. pl. 30, p. 197, color illus.

Lemeux-Fraitot, Sidonie. L’Orientalisme. Paris: Citadelles & Mazenod, 2015. p. 83

Williams, Haydn. "Turquerie An Eighteenth-Century European Fantasy". London: Thames & Hudson, 2014.

Rochelle Ziskin: Sheltering Art: Collecting and Social Identity in early 18th century Paris (Univer-sity Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011) fig. 112, p. 188

Emmanuelle Peyraube, Le Harem des Lumières: L’image de la femme dans la peinture orientaliste du XVIIIe siècle, Paris: Éditions du patrimoine, Centre des monuments nationaux, 2008, p. 64 (illus.) and back cover.

Emma Barker, “Mme Geoffrin, Painting and Galanterie: Carle Van Loo’s Conversation espagnole and lecture espagnole” Eighteenth Century Studies Vol. 40, No. 4 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, Summer 2007) p. 596, b&w fig. 7, p. 597.

Philip Conisbee, ed., French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century (Washington DC: National Gallery of Art in asso. with Yale University Press, 2007) p. 22, b&w fig. 12, p. 23.

Susan L. Siegfried, “Femininity and the Hybridity of Genre Painting,” in French Genre Painting in the Eighteenth Century, edited by Philip Conisbee, Symposium Papers XLIX, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007, p. 23, fig 12.

Alain Pougetoux, Actes du Colloque Les Vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon (Paris: Musée du Louvre, 2001) p. 108, b&w ill. fig. 1, p. 121.

Anne Barriault, Selections Virginia Museum of Fine Arts (Richmond: Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, 1997) p. 63, ill. (color), detail p. 51 (color).

Colin B. Bailey, et al., The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, exh. cat., National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2003, p. 232 (illus.).

Les Vies de Dominique-Vivant Denon/Tome I, Conference publication, Paris: la Documentation française, 2001, illus. p. 121.

Perrin Stein, “Madame de Pompadour and the Harem Imagery at Bellevue,” Gazette des Beaux Arts 123 (January 1994), p. 41.

Pinkney Near, “European Paintings and Drawings: The Williams Collection and Fund,” Apollo, Vol. CXXII, No. 286, Dec. 1985, p. 448, fig. no. 9.

Pinkney Near, “Carle Van Loo—‘A Pasha Having His Mistress’ Portrait Painted,” Arts in Virginia, Vol. 23, No. 3, 1983, pp. 18-27 (color illus.).

Donald A. Rosenthal, Orientalism: The Near Easy in French Painting, 1800-1880, exh. cat., Memorial Art Gallery, Rochester, 1982, p. 16, Checklist no. 73, p. 168, illus. fig. 6, p. 17.

“The Incomparable Josephine,” Apollo, Vol. CVI, No. 185, July 1977, p. 12, fig. 18.

Marie-Catherine Sahut, Carle Van Loo: Premier peintre du roi, Nice, 1977, Cat. No. 53, p. 44, illus. pl. 5.

M. Roland-Michel, “Representations de l’exotisme dans la peinture en France dans la premiere moitiée du XVIIIe siècle,” Studies on Voltaire and the eighteenth century, No. CLI-CLV, 1976, p. 1450.

C. Henry, The Works of Carle Van Loo in North American Collections, Masters Thesis, The City University of New York, Queens College, 1976, pp. 138-141, no. 99.

Andrzej Ryszkiewicz, “Van Loo et Pierre (sur quelques tableaux avec ‘turqueries’ dans les collections polonaises),” Bulletin du Musee National de Varsovie, Vo. XVI, 1975, No. 1, p. 23, illus. p. 19, fig. 3.

Pinkney Near, “A Turkish Fantasy,” Arts in Virginia, Vol. VIII, No. 3, Spring 1968, pp. 22-24 (illus.).

European Art in the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, VMFA, Richmond, 1966, Cat. No. 57, pp. 41-42 (illus.), color detail p. 34.

The Art Quarterly, Spring 1960, Vol. XXIII, p. 93, illus. on cover and p. 102.

Connaissance des Arts, April 15, 1956, p. 67 (illus.).

Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1950, p. 54, note #3.

Serge Grandjean, Inventaire après deces de l’Imperatrice Josephine a Malmaison, Paris, 1964, p. 152.

Louis Reau, “Carle Vanloo (1705-1765),” Archives de l’Art Francais, new series, t. XIX, 1938, pp. 22, 28, 91, No. 24.

Auguste Boppe, Les Peintres du Bosphore au dix-huitieme Siècle, Paris, 1911, pp. 119-120.

Gëmalde Sammlung des Herzog von Leuchtenberg, Galeries Leuchtenberg, Munich, 1851, p. 33, No. 175, Pl. 175.

Verzeichnis der Bilder-Gallerie seiner Königlichen Hoheit des Prinzen Eugen, Herzog von Leuchtenberg, Munich, 1843, p. 55, No. 37.

Catalogue (Gemalde Sammlung in Munchen) of the Collection of Dom Augusto, Herzog von Leuchtenbeg, Munich, 1835, p. 55, No. 21.

Muxel, Catalogue des tableaux de La galerie de feu son altesse royale Monseigneur le Prince Eugene duc de Leuchtenberg a Munich, Munich, 1833, p. 5, No. 2.

Catalogue des tableaux de sa Majeste l’Imperatice Josephine dans la galerie et appartements de son palais de Malmaison, Paris, Didot jeune, 1811, p. 18, No. 144.

Ibid., p. 271.

Ch. De Mouy, Correspondance inedited du roi Stanislas-Auguste Poniatowski et de Madame Geoffrin (1764-1777), Paris, 1875, p. 264.

Dandre-Bardon, Vie de Carle Vanloo, p. 24, 64.

Lafont de Saint-Yenne, Sentimens sur quelques ouvrages de Peinture, Sculpture et Gravure, Ecrits a un Particulier en Province, 1754m p. 30.

“Exposition de Tableaux, Desseins, Sculpteurs et Graveurs de l’Académie Royale établie à paris, sous la protection du Roy,” Mercure de France, Sep. 1737, p. 2019, No. 3.
By 1766, Jean de Julienne, Paris (1686 – 1766). [1] March 30, 1767, Presle Collection, Paris. [2] By 1801, Collection of François-Antoine Robit (1752 – 1815); [3] May 1801, Empress Josephine, Malmaison (1763 – 1814); [4] By 1824, inherited by son, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, 1st Duke of Leuchtenberg (1781-1824), Munich; [5] By 1835, descent to son, Auguste de Beauharnais, 2nd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1810-1835), Munich; [6] By 1851, descent to brother Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852), Munich and then St. Petersburg, Russia. [7] By 1909, George C. Thomas, Philadelphia (1839 -1909). [8] November 1924, Samuel T. Freeman & Co. [9]. By 1959, Newhouse Galleries, New York; Purchased by VMFA, Richmond, VA, accessioned September 23, 1959. [10]


[1] According to sources, the work was painted for de Juilenne. See Pierre Rosenberg and Marie-Catherine Sahut, Carle Van Loo: Premier peintre du roi (Nice: 1977), Cat. No. 53, p. 44.

[2] See Pierre Rosenberg and Marie-Catherine Sahut, Carle Van Loo: Premier peintre du roi (Nice: 1977), Cat. No. 53, p. 44.

[3] According to file, painting was possibly acquired by Dominique-Vivant Denon for Empress Josephine, Sale of the collection of François-Antoine Robit, May 11, 1801, la grande salle de vente, rue de Clèry, Paris, France.

[4] The painting appeared in inventories of Malmaison. Catalogue des tableaux de sa Majeste l’Imperatice Josephine dans la galerie et appartements de son palais de Malmaison, Paris, Didot jeune, 1811, p. 18, No. 144.

[5] See Pinkney Near, “A Turkish Fantasy,” Arts in Virginia, Vol. VIII, No. 3, Spring 1968, p. 24.

[6] See Catalogue (Gëmalde Sammlung in Munchen) of the Collection of Dom Augusto, Herzog von Leuchtenberg, Munich, 1835, p. 55, No. 21.

[7] See Gëmalde Sammlung des Herzog von Leuchtenberg, Galeries Leuchtenberg, Munich, 1851, p. 33, No. 175, Pl. 175. The work was inherited by Maximilian de Beauharnais, 3rd Duke of Leuchtenberg (1817-1852), Munich and then St. Petersburg, Russia, after he married Grand Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia. It is not known how the painting left Russia.

[8] It is believed to be the same painting mentioned in a 1924 auction catalogue from collection of George C. Thomas, Philadelphia, as The Artist Painting a Portrait. See next note.

[9] Samuel T. Freeman & Co. Important Sale of Oil Paintings by the Great Masters of the English and Barbizon Schools, Collection of the Late George C. Thomas, auction catalogue, November 12th and 13th, 1924. Philadelphia, Pa., 1924, No. 29.

[10] See VMFA Curatorial and Registration files.

Some object records are not complete and do not reflect VMFA's full and current knowledge. VMFA makes routine updates as records are reviewed and enhanced.