In
Private Salons and the Art World of Enlightenment Paris, Rochelle Ziskin explores in depth two remarkable private gatherings generating significant art criticism during the middle of the eighteenth century. She demonstrates how the sites harboring them came to embody and disseminate their judgments. One politically active group assembled at the house Mme Doublet shared with
amateur Petit de Bachaumont; at her “Mondays” for artists, Mme Geoffrin collaborated with the powerful lover of antiquity Caylus and
amateurs including Mariette and Watelet. In focusing on official Salons of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, historians too often overlook the crucial role of these frequent, regular assemblies, where works of art were quite often first assessed and taste shaped.
This book will appeal to readers interested in eighteenth-century French artistic culture, journalism, and women’s patronage. The painters discussed include Boucher, Van Loo, Charles Coypel, Cochin, Vien, Pierre, Lagrenée, and Hubert Robert.
Rochelle Ziskin, Ph.D., Harvard University (1992), Professor emerita, University of Missouri-Kansas City, is the author of
Sheltering Art: Cultural Quarrels and Social Identity in Early Eighteenth-Century Paris (2012) and
The Place Vendôme: Architecture and Social Mobility in Eighteenth-Century Paris (1999).
Acknowledgements List of Figures List of Maps Abbreviations
Introduction: Two virtuoses, Mme Doublet and Mme Geoffrin
1
Mme Doublet, Bachaumont and “the Parish” 1 The Maison Doublet in 1722
2 The Parish: “Learned Men of All Kinds”
3 The Maison Doublet, Breuilpont and “the Parish”
4 The Boyer Brothers and the Parish
5 “La jolie tête” and “les deux frères:” The Ferriol
6 “The Good Doctor,” “Sage Mairan” and Sainte-Palaye
7 The “Five abbés”
8 An Outpost of the Palais-Royal
2
Shaping Taste, Academic Reform, and Saving the Louvre 1 Reinvigorating the Academy
2 Artists in Paris ca. 1750
3 Saving the Louvre
4 Essai sur la peinture, la sculpture et l’architecture (1751)
3
Politics, Art, Journalism, and Bonds of Friendship at the Maison Doublet 1 Gallicanism, Parlement, and the Parish
2 The abbé Laugier and the Parish
3 The La Curne Brothers: Erudition and Art
4 “La présidente de Meinières, Who Loves Letters”
5 The Maison Doublet
4
Wednesdays and Mondays: Mme Geoffrin and Her bureaux d’esprit and des arts 1 Shaping Taste: Mme Geoffrin’s “Mondays”
2 Caylus: Leading at the Academy, Presiding at the lundis (1747–1752)
3 Who Attended the lundis?
4 Collector Friends: The marquis de Voyer and comte de Vence
5 Paintings, Manuscripts, and Books: Gaignat (1697–1768)
6 Art and Social Mobility: Gaillard de La Bouëxière (1676–1759)
7 “Patriotic” Collecting: Ange-Laurent La Live de Jully (1725–1775)
8 “Nothing … but Van Loos, Bouchers, Pierres, Viens, Doyens”: The Collection of Watelet
9 Other Amateurs at the lundis during the Fifties
10 Marigny’s “compagnons de voyage”: Cochin, Soufflot and abbé Le Blanc
11 Artists of the lundis
5
Paintings Made “Under My Eyes” 1 Antiquity, Encaustic, and “Costume”
2 Mme Geoffrin and Van Loo: They Argued, … They Laughed, They Cried … and … the Painting … Was Finished
3 Apelles Resuscitated: Vien and Mme Geoffrin
4 Vernet: “Imagination” and “Fire”
5 Laborde: Vernet, Greuze, and the Painter’s Revenge
6 Vernet, Boucher and the petit cabinet
7 Hubert Robert: Intimate Views of Mme Geoffrin
8 Lagrenée the Elder and Mme Geoffrin’s “Clandestine Devotion”
9 Mme Geoffrin’s cabinet de compagnie
6
Epilogue: Mme Geoffrin: Advocate and Liaison 1 Agent for the English
Select Bibliography Index
All interested in 18th-century French artistic culture, women’s patronage, 18th-century journalism, and the artists who participated—including Boucher, Van Loo, Charles Coypel, Cochin, Vien, Pierre, Lagrenée, and Hubert Robert. Keywords: salons, Paris, art, Mme Geoffrin, Mme Doublet, Caylus, Bachaumont, criticism, patronage, Boucher, Van Loo, Vien.