BOISSEL de MONVILLE Hippolyte (EN)

Biographical article

Hyppolite Boissel de Monville (1794-1873), the son of Thomas Gaston Boissel de Monville (1763–1832) and Anne Simonne Sautereaux de Quincize (1759–1835), belonged to a family of Norman nobility. His father had been a councillor in the Parliament of Paris in 1785 before becoming the Mayor of Montville (formerly spelled Monville) and was awarded the titles of Baron of the Empire (1810) and Peer of France (1815) (Chaix d’Est-Ange, G., 1906, p. 1923). On 10 July 1823, Hyppolite married Louise Lannes de Montebello (1806–1889), the daughter of Jean Lannes de Montebello (1769–1809) and Louise Antoinette Scholastique de Guéhéneuc (1782–1856), who had left a lasting mark on the world of curiosities due to the extent of his post-death sales in the 1850s. He succeeded his father at the city hall of Montville from 1831 until 1847, the year he sold all his property after a major setback in his fortunes (Poulin, A., 1988, p. 22). This setback may have been connected with the deadly storm that struck Montville on 19 August 1845, which resulted in great damage to the industries in the valleys of Malanay and Montville, where Hyppolite Boissel de Monville owned textile mills (Anonymous, 1845, np.).

Botanist

Hyppolite Boissel de Monville is also known for his passion for cacti. A learned botanist, he gave his name to several species. He compiled a unique collection that was described and illustrated by the botanist Charles Lemaire (1838, 1839, see also 1841–1847). The sale of these exotic plants took place at Monville-lès-Rouen on 15 July 1846.

An agent of the Rothschilds

Although he was often mentioned in connection with the quality of his collections in journals linked with the world of curiosities, it is not easy to retrace the life of Hyppolite Boissel de Monville. At an unknown date, he became the agent of James de Rothschild’s sons, Alphonse, Gustave, and Salomon, for whom he purchased works of art. Salomon de Rothschild’s sale books attest to this practice and highlight its regularity and extent: between 1862 and 1864, Salomon paid no less than 52,354 francs to the Baron Boissel de Monville (Abrigeon, P. d’, 2019, n. 11; Prevost-Marcilhacy, P., 2016, Vol. II, pp. 8–19). Despite his expertise, Hyppolite Boissel de Monville had to deal with a murky fraud case at the end of 1850 (Charpy, M., 2010, pp. 525, 546, and 600–602; Anonymous, 1858, np.). A certain Pierrat, a ‘preparer of objets d’art’ and restorer of enamel objects, indulged in the creation of fake enamel pieces, which were then sold as sixteenth-century objects. In 1858, Boissel de Monville acquired—through the intermediary of a bookseller, who went by the name of Chalvet—almost 25,000 francs worth of enamel objects (ewers, vases, and salt cellars) produced by Pierrat and coated with a ‘skilfully and artistically applied layer of dirt’, and to which he had added the chips and restorations intended to create the illusion of oldness (Anonymous, 1858, np.). Hyppolite won the case and Pierrat was condemned to fifteen months in prison and a 1,000 franc fine.

The collection

Hyppolite Boiselle de Monville held several sales of his collection of works of art: these sales were held infrequently over the years and were highly varied. Although the quantities were modest, the reputation acquired by Boissel de Monville in the world of curiosities turned each of these sales into a veritable event.

1837: a taste for the Renaissance

The first cabinet sold by Hyppolite Boissel de Monville was very heteroclite and primarily attracted attention because of its rarity. The author of the catalogue’s preface highlighted the extreme rarity of the faience and enamel ware, evoking in particular, in the category of faience, a portrait of Bernard Palissy, as a ewer had come from the tableware of King Henri II (1519–1559). The objects carved in wood and alabaster, and the weapons, furniture, and goldsmithed objects attest to his love of the Renaissance style. Amongst his various pictures and drawings were works by contemporary artists such as Eugène Delacroix and eighteenth-century painters such as Jean-Baptiste Greuze (1725–1805), whose work entitled La Volupté sold for 4,900 francs.

Prior to their dispersion, the works from this first cabinet had partly been used to illustrate the book by Nicolas-Xavier Willemin and André Pottier entitled Monument français inédit pour servir à l’histoire des arts (1839) (see Arquié-Bruley, F., 1983).

1861: the Italian bronzes

In 1861, Boissel de Monville sold his collection of bronzes. The collector, who certainly had a sense of humour, had himself drafted the title of the catalogue of his ‘pre-death’ sale (Anonymous, 1861, p. 237, ss. Lugt, BNF, YD-1 (1861-01-24)-8), mainly comprising fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Italian bronzes. According to the catalogue’s preface, each object was marked by a stamp bearing the collector’s initials: ‘BM’, which is believed to have been removed by the auctioneer during the sale. This detail says a good deal about Boissel de Monville’s awareness of the exceptional nature of the objects he had collected, as though eternally marking these objects with his seal was a guarantee of value and authenticity. Some of the objects added to the Musée du Louvre’s collections bear this mark (for example, a profile bust of Medea on a medallion, inv. no. OA 7014). Some of the main buyers at this sale were, unsurprisingly, James de Rothschild, as well as Van Cuyck (the other agent who purchased works of art on behalf of the Rothschilds), the experts and dealers Charles Mannheim, Roussel, and Nicolas Joseph Malinet (1805–1886), the London dealer Durlacher, the art critic and collector Eugène Piot (1812–1890), as well as Nolivos, Gagliardi, Escudier, and so on. The sale was presented in the Chronique des arts et de la curiosité as a success: ‘(…) This brilliantly and cleverly held sale totalled 19,221 francs in the first auction, and in the second 14,816 francs. This was a good début as an expert for Mr Carle Delange, whose erudition and qualities are already well known’ (Anonymous, 1861, p. 49).

1866, Japanese and Chinese porcelains

Then came the sale of ‘his last collection’: on 12 and 13 February 1866, the ‘doyen of the collectors’—as described by the author of the catalogue’s preface (Anonymous, 1866, p. 3)—sold his objets d’art, in particular his significant collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelains. The sale, which aroused ‘some emotion amongst bric-à-brac dealers’ (Deriége, F., 1866, n. p.), generated no less than 34,037 francs. The catalogue was drafted ‘based on the documents and under the direction’ of Albert Jacquemart, an art critic and specialist in ceramics who had often made references to Boissel de Monville’s collection in his writings (1859, 1862, 1876, etc.). Hence, he reused the classifications that he had produced in his first book on porcelain, co-written with Edmond Le Blant in 1862: in it certain terms are used, such as ‘green family’, ‘pink family’, and ‘chrysanthemum-peony family’. Likewise, the attribution to Japan of porcelains from the ‘pink family’, which were resolutely Chinese, was a mistake repeated in the Boissel de Monville catalogue (Abrigeon, P. d’, 2018–2019). This is attested by one of the objects that sold for the highest sum: a ‘compotier’ decorated with a woman and child in a resolutely Chinese interior, described as the ‘most extraordinary porcelain piece, as it seems that the artist wanted to bring together all the tones and highly varied techniques of Japanese ceramics; it has been made with great finesse and is an admirable success’ (Abrigeon, P. d’, 2019, § 18, Fig. 4).

This sale does indeed seem to have been the last, as the writer of the catalogue’s preface wrote in 1869—during the exhibition at the Musée Oriental held by the Union Centrale des Arts Décoratifs—that Hyppolite Boissel de Monville only exhibited two lots; no doubt, as he made his way around the various rooms in this exhibition, he recognised many of the objects that he had once owned, now the property of a new generation of collectors.

Despite their apparent diversity, the sales of 1837 and 1866 had earthenware as a common denominator—whether Oriental, French, or Italian—, objects which Boissel de Monville was truly attached to and which were often mentioned in the articles written by certain art critics (Jacquemart, A., 1859, Bonnafé, E., 1888).