BOURGUIGNON de FABREGOULES Jean-Baptiste (EN)
Biographical Article
The Bourguignon de Fabregoules family belonged to the nobility of Provence. Their coat of arms was registered at the Armorial général of 1696 (Chaix d'Est-Ange G., 1907, p. 195). It was “gold, with a boar crossing a green lawn; with an azure crest emblazoned with three silver stars. The shield was stamped with the crown of a marquis” (Viton de Saint-Allais N., 1876, p. 308).
"Strategy to Win Notability" (Maral A., 2002, p. 1)
On May 25, 1747, Jean Bourguignon was granted the ennobling office of "secretary to the King, house and crown of France, audiencier to la Cour des comptes, aides et finances d’Aix", which he kept until his death. He had seven sons with his wife, Madeleine Béraud, whom he wed in 1723 (Chaix d’Est-Ange, G., 1907, p. 195).
Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon de Fabregoules (? -1781), lord of Fabregoules, took advantage of this position, and was provided with the office of adviser secretary to the King in 1771-1772, near the Parliament of Provence. On his death, the office was sold by his heirs.
His son (1746-1836), who borethe same name, was born on April 4, 1746. As Secretary audiencer to the chancellery at the court of the Parliament of Provence in Aix, he acquired the office of secretary adviser to the King at the Parliament of Provence in 1776 and received the title of squire at the royal court of Aix. This acquired nobility earned him a certain notoriety in the city. In this sense, the art historian Alexandre Maral evokes a real "strategy to win notability" (2002). Upon his father’s death in 1781, Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon de Fabregoules relieved himself of the burden of office and retained his status as squire alone. In 1782, he sealed a matrimonial alliance with a wealthy Marseilles family, the Martins. Marie-Louise Marseille Martin was the daughter of Jean-Baptiste Martin, squire, adviser-secretary to the king and alderman of the city of Marseilles (Viton de Saint-Allais N., 1876, p. 308). The year 1789 marked the peak of his career, when he became mayor of Septèmes.
A Recognised Parliamentarian from Aix
His son, Jean-Baptiste Marie Bourguignon de Fabregoules, inherited his entire collection in 1836. He was the holder of a considerable fortune, which was based on a heritage of both land and furniture. In particular, he was the owner of an oil factory near the Place de la Rotonde as well as of market stalls (Derobert-Ratel, 2003, p. 89). He regained his notoriety and was elevated to the rank of Chevalier de l’ordre royal de la Légion d’honneur on April 29, 1846. Following in the footsteps of his father, he was appointed auditor advisor by imperial decree on June 1, 1811, then counsellor at the court of Aix, on February 29, 1816. A year after his first appointment, he married Aline de Bures de Villiers, daughter of a former musketeer of the king's guard (Viton de Saint-Allais N., 1876, p. 308). He was granted retirement in 1852 and obtained the title of honorary adviser (Gaut J.-B., 1864, p. 31). In 1862, he was refused the rank of Officier de la Légion d’honneur, as his work as a magistrate was considered "mediocre" by the Attorney General (AN, BB/6(II)/58). Personal information and the survey of his colleagues reveal a man with little commitment to his work, and "often on leave" (AN, BB/6(II)/58).
Social and Political Decay and Refuge in the Collecting Project
This notoriety would however deteriorate with the repercussion of the events that shook Paris in 1789; populist vindictiveness being carried out spontaneously against the wealthiest. It was indeed during this period that he began to cultivate his taste for art (Maral A., 2002) and to build his collection — for the disorders had at least certain advantages. Indeed, the historian of Provençal collections, Émile Perrier (1859-1932), nostalgically evokes this "golden age of 'curiosity', [where] good opportunities were more frequent than nowadays" (1897, p. 97). Bourguignon de Fabregoules took advantage of this administrative, political and economic disorder to acquire pieces, the provenance of which remained uncertain. In 1816, he abandoned his function, accused of supporting Napoléon Bonaparte. This pivotal period forced him into reclusion in his home in rue Longue Saint-Jean (now rue Roux-Alphéran).
A Recognised Parliamentarian from Aix
His son, Jean-Baptiste Marie Bourguignon de Fabregoules, inherited his entire collection in 1836. He was the holder of a considerable fortune, based on a heritage of both land and furniture. In particular, he was the owner of an oil factory near the Place de la Rotonde ans well as of market stalls (Derobert-Ratel, 2003, p. 89). He regained his notoriety and was elevated to the rank of Chevalier de l’ordre royal de la Légion d’honneur on April 29, 1846. Following in the footsteps of his father, he was appointed on June 1, 1811, auditor advisor by imperial decree, then counsellor at the court of Aix, on February 29, 1816. A year after his first appointment, he married Aline de Bures de Villiers, daughter of a former musketeer of the king's guard (Viton de Saint-Allais N., 1876, p. 308). He was granted retirement in 1852 and obtained the title of honorary adviser (Gaut J.-B., 1864, p. 31). In 1862, he was refused the rank of Officier de la Légion d’honneur, his work as a magistrate being considered "mediocre" by the Attorney General (AN, BB/6(II)/58). Personal information and the survey of his colleagues reveal a man with little commitment to his work, and "often on leave" (AN, BB/6(II)/58).
Circles of Sociability Promoting Artistic Exchanges
Jean-Baptiste Marie Bourguignon de Fabregoules has an extensive network of knowledge. He entered Freemasonry and joined the Lodge of Friendship, then the Lodge of Friends of Charity, which was affiliated with the Grand Orient (Maral A., 2002, p. 7). The brotherhood stimulated exchanges and discussions on art. Bourguignon de Fabregoules also belonged to the circle of Agathophiles, "a society of encouragement for the trade of works of art, which at the beginning of the 19th century sold, bought, exchanged statues, busts, fragments, antique medals, curiosities of the Middle Ages and even rare and curious objects of natural history” (Maral A., 2002, p. 7). Despite everything, the collection did not seem to undergo major changes after 1836 (Maral A., 2002, p. 6).
The collector demonstrated extremism and on October 2, 1860 signed a deed of donation in favour of the city of Aix-en-Provence. Christiane Derobert-Ratel wonders about the possibility of a meeting between Honoré Gibert (dates unknown) and Bourguignon de Fabregoules, during a session at the Amis de la Bienfaisance (1987, p. 206). Alexandre Maral suggests a rapprochement as early as 1822 (2002, p. 13). When he died on January 20, 1863, the Musée d'Aix was confronted with the considerable size of the collection, receiving nearly 636 paintings, 269 pieces of sculpture, and other miscellaneous objects; the latter category encompassed works of Asian art. Renovation work had become necessary, and the museum temporarily invested the old chapel of the Pénitents blancs to house the new collection. On December 16, 1866, during the session held in Aix by the Scientific Congress of France, the public was finally able to discover the collection of Bourguignon de Fabregoules (Gibert H., 1882, p. XXVII). Further expansion work was undertaken in 1875 and completed in 1878. Its installation was thus made permanent (Gibert H., 1882, p. XXX).
The Collection
The inventory of the Bourguignon de Fabregoules collection, kept at the musée Granet, includes 952 items. It is a "multifaceted collection", to quote Alexandre Maral (2002, p. 1). Although Asian art only made up a tiny portion of the collection, it nonetheless represented the taste for curiosity that was widespread in the 18th century.
Collection for Collection’s Sake
Honoré Gibert, author of the collection catalogue, mentions its exemplary nature. Jean-Baptiste Bourguignon de Fabregoules senior "was what was formerly called a curieux and what we have come to call today an amateur" (1867, p. X). The curator of the Musée d'Aix portrays a "zealous collector, like the collector who loves it above all for itself", who was not lacking in "human fantasy" (1867, p. X). The collection would thus represent "the goal of his whole life", which enabled him to acquire a "just reputation" in the medium of the arts and to appear "among our national celebrities" (Gibert H., 1867, p. XI). Bourguignon de Fabregoules had the "taste of a great lord", according to Honoré Gibert, who noted the luxurious character of this collection that was made up of choice pieces. As a whole, it opposed "the miserable ambitions of the maniac" and the scholar, "for whom the art object is often only a disregarded finding after it has offered up its element of exclusivity" (Gibert H., 1867, pp. X-XI).
A Collection of Pictorial Masterpieces
The correspondent in Provence of the Commission des travaux de l'histoire de France, J. B. F. Porte (1790-18?), was enthusiastic about this "very considerable collection of paintings, many of which are estimable and many rather capital” (1833, p. 190). The author proceeds by enumeration and draws up a long list of masterpieces by Flemish, Italian and French artists, like Antoine van Dyck (1599-1641), Esaias Van de Velde (circa 1590-1630), Francisco de Zurbarán (1598-1664), Cranach, Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725-1805), and Pierre Puget (1620-1694). Modern sculpture also holds a place (Maral A., 2002).
The Cabinet of an 18th-century Curieux
The collection includes an abundant cabinet of curiosities, showing a strong propensity for Egyptology and Latin and Oriental epigraphy. Indeed, natural history objects and pieces from lapidary archeology account for a good portion of it. There are engraved stones, a set of ancient cameos, scarabs, vases, ancient bronzes, notably Greek and Egyptian, boa skin, shells, and other botanical and zoological specimens.
The Bourguignon de Fabregoules collection enjoyed a certain reputation. The future president of the Third Republic (1871-1873), Adolphe Thiers (1797-1877), would thus have developed his taste for collecting with regard to that of Bourguignon de Fabregoules (Perrier É., 1897, p. 508), even if he was not able to draw the best examples on the side of Asian art.
Asian Curiosities
The successive catalogues, published by Honoré Gibert, provide an approximate identification of pieces of Asian origin that oscillate between China and Japan. After an iconographic analysis of the works, some misunderstandings must also be noted.
The collection included a series of three statuettes (Gibert H., 1882, no. 1758-1761), certainly export pieces executed in the region of Guangzhou (廣州), in the province of Guangdong (廣東). These terracotta sculptures, dubbed ‘bobbleheads’ by Honoré Gibert, had limbs left on only two of them, a feature that serves as a testimony to the vagaries of time. A bottle-shaped vase with a long neck, evoking Chinese red and gold kinrande art (Gibert H., 1882, no 1628), was representative of this taste for Chinese porcelain, which was shared by a good number of collectors. The "bucket" (Gibert H., 1882, no 1627), which probably designated a porcelain basin from the Compagnie des Indes, was marked with the arms of the kingdom of France and also represented this taste. A so-called Japanese soapstone niche, in reality of Chinese manufacture, represents a seated scholar, protected by an umbrella by one of his four acolytes (Gibert H., 1882, no 1763), certainly the Taoist immortal Wenchang (文昌). There is also a box on which Chinese ideograms are drawn, or a "cup surrounded by foliage (Japanese art)", or rather a lotiform libation cup, in horn, of Chinese origin (Gibert H., 1882, no 1764). The inventory also mentions Japanese swords.
A few Indian objects are also present, such as the dagger with a damascene blade in its sheath, which is finished with a carved wooden handle and represents an Indian deity (AD 13, 308 E 1375). Honoré Gibert hesitates to designate an ivory vase as Chinese or Indian. The vase presents "a race of fantastic animals" on its belly and a lid that is formed by a lion, certainly a fo dog (佛) that acts as a grip button (Gibert H., 1867, no 896).
The extent of Asian art in the collection was thus limited. It presented Indian, Chinese, and Japanese objects, mainly intended for export, in response to the desire for exoticism of Westerners at the time. The Bourguignon de Fabregoules donation added to a body of pre-existing Asian art, which resulted from various legacies sent to the Musée d'Aix, including the Granet bequest of 1849.
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