Random families, random family portraits

A Family Portrait (Czechoslovakian), by Alois Spulak, circa 1840s.

I adore family portraits, the suave and the crude. I love how they tell us so much about the individual personalities and about the group dynamic. Or they don't; how many false narratives are memorialized in these spare or crowded compositions? And how is character - false or genuine - revealed? Are we more likely to find the truth in the work of a very accomplished artist, the one whose technique is completely secure, who has the ability to capture a likeness, to accurately describe space and surfaces? Or should we put more faith in the naïve or less skilled painter, whose real struggle just to get things right, might diminish the likelihood of gross flattery or any calculated revision of the way the family members relate to each other? With old portraits we rarely know much if anything about the true story of these family relationships. But it's "story" and "relationship" that come down to us, anyway. Whether truth or obfuscation, the stories of these nonetheless real people continue to play out, to reach out to us. In paint and in two dimensions.
 

Mr. and Mrs. James Blew and Their Three Children, attributed to Johan Zoffany and Studio, circa 1770s.

A Musician and His Family (thought to be composer Fernando Sor, his wife, and son), French School, circa 1810s.

Family Portrait, by Gillis van Tilborgh, circa 1665.

Family Portrait of a Merchant, Russian School, circa 1870s.

Everhard Jabach and His Family, by Charles Le Brun, circa 1660s.

Portrait of the Foerster Family, by Emil Foerster, circa 1856.

Portrait of Ferdinand Bergmüller and His Family, by Franz Schrotzberg, 1845.

The duc and duchesse d'Orléans and their children, French School, before 1842. (This odd little portrait is painted on tin.)

Madame Mercier Surrounded by Her Family, by Jacques Dumont, 1731.

Family Portrait (the artist, his wife, and two daughters, Feodor Petrovich Tolstoy, 1830.

Bloomsbury Family (the painter William Nicholson, his wife Mabel, and children), by William Orpen, 1907.

John Coakley Lettsom with His Family, in the Garden of Grove Hill, Camberwell, unknown artist, 1786.

Family Portrait, French or Italian School, circa 1800-1810.

Family Group (the artist and his family), by Frederick R. Spencer, 1840.

Franz von Lenbach mit Frau Lolo und den Töchtern Marion und Gabriele (the artist, his wife, and daughters), by Franz von Lenbach, 1903.

Joseph Moore and His Family, by Erastus Salisbury Field, 1839.

The Family of Sir Robert Vyner, by John Michael Wright, 1673.

The Bennett Family, by Samuel Woodforde, exhibited 1803. (Such an active family; the youngest has fallen asleep...!)

A Family Portrait in an Interior, by Francesco Pascucci, 1790.

The Comte de Chabaud-Latour and His Family, by Jacques-Luc Barbier-Walbonne, 1806.

My Uncle Daniel and His Family, by Ignacio Zuloaga y Zabaleta, 1910.

Portrait of the Artist and His Family, Andries van Bochoven, 1629.

Gabriel Joseph de Froment, Baron de Castille, his wife Princess Hermine Aline Dorothée de Rohan, and family, unknown artist, before 1825.

The Imperial Family of Japan, unknown artist, 1900.

Baron Cerrini with his Family, by Johann Fischbach, 1832.

The Family of the Painter Adalbert Trillhaase, by Otto Dix, 1923.

David George van Lennep and Family, by Antoine de Favray, circa 1769-71.

The gilding of perfection - the work of Pierre Gouthière

"Each to his own taste", as the saying goes. And the designs of the rarefied objects that Gouthière contributed to are certainly not pleasing to every viewer. "Over the top", "gaudy", "fussy", etc., might be some of the expected, disapproving reactions. But to his original clients and to his latter-day "fans" - count me in, whole-heartedly - he was truly a great artist, a genius, one of the greatest craftsmen of all time.

Pair of candelabra, circa 1780-1785. (Four images.)

From the collection of the duc d'Aumont. (Five images.) Pair of incense burners, circa 1775.

One of a pair of vases, 1782.

One of a pair of vases, circa 1770–75.

Pair of Candelabra, 1782.

Vase, circa 1775–80.

Pair of firedogs, circa 1780-85.

Pair of vases, circa 1785. (Three images.)

Pair of vases, circa 1775.

One of a pair of candelabra, circa 1785-90.

From the collection of Marie Antoinette. (Two images.) Pair of ewers, from the cabinet de la méridienne, Versailles, circa 1785.

Pair of firedogs, from the boudoir turc, Fontainebleau, 1777.

Clock, circa 1785-90.

Footed bowl, attributed to Gouthière, circa 1785.

From the collection of the duchesse de Mazarin. (Two images.) Pair of wall lights, circa 1780.

Side table, 1781.

Pair of wall lights, attributed to Gouthière, circa 1785.

From the collection of the duc d'Aumont. (Two images.) Pair of vases, circa 1770–75.

Vase, circa 1775–80.

Pair of candelabra, circa 1785-90.

Pair of vases, circa 1775. (Two images.)

From the collection of the comtesse du Barry. (Two images.) Window knob, circa 1770.

Firedogs from the grand salon carré in the pavilion at Louveciennes, 1771.

One of a pair of candelabra, attributed to Gouthière, circa 1785-90.

From the collection of Marie Antoinette. Secrétaire à abattant, designed by Jean-Henri Riesener, 1783. (Four images.) Additional post HERE.

***

The Hôtel Gouthière, his mansion in the 10th arrondissement of Paris; built in 1780, he was forced to sell it eight years later.

Pierre Gouthière (1732, Bar-sur-Aube - 1813, Paris), French metal worker, specifically a ciseleur-doreur, considered to be the greatest of his time. Adapted from the Getty Museum website:

The son of a saddlemaker, Pierre Gouthière rose to become the most famous Parisian bronze chaser and gilder of the late 1700s, receiving commissions from some of the leading connoisseurs of his day. Like many successful apprentices, he married the widow of his first employer and took over his establishment. Success came quickly, and in November 1767 he received the title of doreur seul ordinaire or doreur du roi (gilder to the king) from Louis XV. He also supplied works to the comte d'Artois, the duc de Penthièvre, the duc d'Aumont, the marquis de Marigny, and the marchand-mercier Dominique Daguerre, among others.

Gouthière was a master of chasing and invented a new type of gilding that left a matte finish, la dorure au mat. He combined polished with matte finishes to create varied effects on the surfaces of his bronzes. He made many types of objects, including furniture mounts, ornaments for mantelpieces and coaches, and mounts for porcelain or marble vases.

Gouthière was successful and enjoyed an extravagant lifestyle. By the middle of the 1780s, however, after the deaths of two of his major patrons, unwise financial speculations on his part and, mostly, due to the unpaid bills of the comtesse du Barry, mistress of the late Louis XV - she owed him some 750,000 livres for nearly twenty years' work - he was finally forced into bankruptcy in 1787. The Revolution completed his ruin. He died in poverty, still trying to make her heirs repay him. (She, herself, had been executed at the height of the Reign of Terror in 1793.) The case was finally resolved twenty years later, when his son received a small fraction of the original debt as reimbursement.

Gently polished ladies - six portraits by Jacques de Lalaing

Countess Louise de Baillet, 1902.

Better remembered as a sculptor - if, frankly, remembered at all - the Belgian Lalaing also produced calm, coolly elegant, and very smoothly finished portraits; of the examples I've been able to find, the vast majority are of aristocratic - or at least very genteel - ladies. Most if not all of those featured here appear to have been done in pastel.

Mrs. William Barrett Ridgely, née Kate Deering, 1896.

Mlle. Hélène de Burlet, 1894. (The young lady later became a nun and endured imprisonment during both world wars.)

"Lady Saphire", circa 1910s.

Countess Maximilien de Lalaing, née Julia Vibart, mother of the artist, 1896.

Countess Charles de Lalaing, née Baroness Christine du Tour van Bellinchave, sister-in-law of the artist, 1906.