Upon his death in 1747, Louis Angran de Fontpertuis left behind a collection of 133 pictures, 232 drawings, twenty-seven volumes of prints and 1,361 others in loose sheets, 652 Eastern porcelain wares, 788 shells, thirty-five bronzes, and thirty-four Oriental lacquer objects (Gersaint, E.-F., 1747). The eighty works executed by Flemish and Dutch masters, compared with the thirteen Italian and fourteen French works, as well as the presence of sixty-five landscapes attest to the tastes of his generation, which shifted its attention from Italy to focus on the facture and colours of the Northern Schools. This fascination with Flemish and Dutch paintings continued throughout the eighteenth century (Guichard, C., 2008, and Michel, P., 2007). This ensemble comprises mostly works ranging from the mediocre to the competently executed: sixty pictures were sold for between fourteen and 350 livres. However, around twenty of them appealed to collectors, who raised the price to 603 livres for a Téniers, a master who attained a record with 6,000 livres paid for a Noce de village (‘Village wedding’), which was given to him by the Comtesse de Verrue (1670-1736). Most of the higher prices were for pictures by Flemish and Dutch painters—Teniers, Wouvermans, van Ostade, Metsu, Brill, Rubens, and Rembrandt, or at least attributed to the latter. Only two Paysages by Lorrain, one representing the Judgement of Paris and the other Aeneas and Anchises, attained high prices—1,160 and 2,001 livres respectively. This proportion was inverted when it came to the drawings, with 122 works by French masters (De la Hire was mentioned) and Italian masters (including Guercino), and thirty-eight from the Northern Schools (Blomaert and van Goyen); but seventy-two drawings were not attributed to a school. The most interesting element was the presence of works by contemporary masters such as Boucher and no less than twenty-three drawings by Watteau. However, a lack of details in the sale catalogue makes it difficult to be more precise. Sold for prices ranging from six to forty livres, the ensembles of drawings did not attract collectors. The collection of prints comprised reproductions of works by Italian, Flemish, and Dutch masters, with a fine ensemble of eight volumes published by the Cabinet du Roi. They sold for between four and 192 livres, attesting to a limited interest, except for the works produced directly by the Cabinet du Roi. The bronze pieces included reduced models of antique works, busts, enlèvements (abductions), and, above all, pieces whose provenance was exceptional, with a potpourri vase from the East-Indies and nine Chinese bronzes, with two storks, a woman seated on a lion, and six vases. Despite their rarity and perhaps due to their originality, these bronze objects sold for prices ranging from five to eighty livres. At the same time, other, more classical, subjects exceeded 120 livres, attaining 625 livres for each of the two enlèvements.
Angran de Fontpertuis left thirty-four lacquer objects, a decent ensemble given their relative rarity on the European market in the first half of the eighteenth century (Castelluccio, S., 2019, pp. 185–188). They became less rare, due to the increase in the number of lacquer objects imported and the arrival on the second-hand market of collections sold after the death of collectors. The composition of this ensemble reflects the availability of the objects on the Parisian market, with two trunks and a cabinet, objects which had gone out of fashion at the time, but which perhaps came from an inheritance. However, the thirteen boxes, seven trays, two complete tea services or ‘cabarets’ with four lacquer cups and a teapot (i.e., small objects) were most of the pieces sold in the European market. Due to their size and rarity, the prices for the trunks reached 320 and 378 livres, whilst the cabinet was sold for 1,400 livres, the equivalent of the price of a work by Lorrain. Trays, ‘cabarets’, and boxes were bought for prices ranging from nine to 240 livres, price differences justified by the quality of the lacquer, the complexity of certain Japanese boxes, and the use of a plateau as a tabletop.
Angran de Fontpertuis inherited part of the collections of his uncle, Monsieur Du Vivier (Gersaint, E.-F., 1747, p. 15). Despite this inheritance, his collection attests to the changing tastes of collectors of porcelain wares in the first half of the eighteenth century. It comprised seventy-four blue and white porcelain wares, of which only eight featured decorative elements. Henceforth, he preferred to collect polychrome pieces, which made up more than half of his collection. The small number of celadons and celestial blue wares reflects both the renewed interest of collectors for these wares, and their relative rarity on the European market. Angran de Fontpertuis had a keen interest in collecting porcelain animals; he owned a total of eighty-six objects, including animals shaped like teapots and those mounted in girandoles, whilst human figures represented half the number. The ensemble of 788 shells attest to an increasing interest in natural history, which grew throughout the eighteenth century. The library only has eighty books on theology (6.1% of the collection), including a large number of Jansenist works inherited from his mother. The twenty-one books devoted to jurisprudence (1.6%) attest to a certain interest in law. However, the curiosity characteristic of the eighteenth century is evident in the 223 books in the Sciences and Arts section (17.3%), with a clear preference for music (125 issues), which he may have practised. The 450 works in the literature section (34.4 %), both ancient (Ovid, etc.) and modern (Crébillon, Marivaux, etc.), and foreign language editions, with works written in Spanish, Italian, and English (Tasse, Milton, etc.), attest to his interest in literature in general, whilst the historical section was represented by 535 lots (40.9% of the total), including forty-seven accounts of journeys. His intellectual curiosity led him to acquire Bayle’s Dictionnaire, Vauban’s Projet de dîme royale, and Mahomet’s Alcoran, translated into French by André Du Ryer and published in The Hague in 1722. A bibliophile, Agran de Fontpertuis owned four Italian incunables (printed in Parma and Venice) and the finest sixteenth-century editions of classical Latin works (Aldus, Gryphius, etc) (Catalogue of books of the late M. Angran, Vicomte de Fonspertuis, 1748).
Louis Augustin Angran de Fontpertuis’s collection was characteristic of the collectors of his generation. They shifted away from the subjects of predilection of their elders, preferring to collect the works of the Flemish and Dutch painters rather than the Italians, abandoned the blue and white porcelain for polychrome porcelains, and compiled an ensemble of natural history objects. The presence of gilded wooden consoles suggest that they may have been presented in the seventeenth-century manner, unless they were kept in the attic. Pictures, bronzes, porcelains, and lacquer objects were definitely presented together, as his contemporaries appreciated an abundance of objects organised via the symmetry of forms and subject matter, the contrast of materials and colours, and the mixture of different arts. Aesthetic developments were accompanied by an evolution in sensibilities and mentalities, with a definite interest in history, literature, the sciences, and the arts, to the detriment of religious works.
Article by Stéphane Castelluccio (translated by Jonathan & David Michaelson)
