MARIGNY marquis de (EN)

Biographical commentary

Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (1727-1781), marquis de Marigny (1754) and marquis de Menars (1778), was the brother of Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson (1721-1764), marquise de Pompadour. They were the children of François Poisson de Lucy (1684-1754) and Louise-Madeleine de La Motte (1699-1745). He was born in Paris on 18 February 1727. François Poisson was employed by the Pâris brothers in their role as military contractors for the armies of France. The Pâris were closely associated with the Louis-Henri, duc de Bourbon (1692-1740) during the regency for the young Louis XV from 1723-1725. Louise-Madeleine de La Motte was the daughter of Jean de La Motte, owner of the butcher’s concession to supply the Hôtel Royal des Invalides in Paris. François Poisson became embroiled in the disgrace of the Pâris brothers following the exile of the duc de Bourbon in 1725. From about May 1727, François Poisson lived for seven years in self-imposed exile outside France.

During Poisson’s exile, Louise-Madeleine was protected by Charles-François Lenormant de Tournehem (1684-1751) who provided for Abel-François’ education at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. His sister Jeanne-Antoinette married Lenormant de Tournehem’s nephew, Charles Lenormand d’Étiolles, in 1741. In 1745, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson abandoned her marriage as Madame d’Étiolles to become the recognized mistress of King Louis XV. She was ennobled as marquise de Pompadour and took up residence at the court. On 19 December 1745, Lenormant de Tournehem was appointed by Louis XV as his Directeur et Ordonnateur Général des Bâtiments du Roi. On 10 January 1746, Poisson de Vandières was given the succession to the post of Directeur et Ordonnateur Général des Bâtiments, Jardins, Arts, Académies et Manufactures du Roi. He immediately entered into an informal apprenticeship which culminated in the most important Italian journey of any French administrator of the eighteenth century. Monsieur de Vandières traveled with the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot, the printmaker Charles-Nicolas Cochin fils and the literary commentator abbé Jean-Bernard Le Blanc from December 1749 until September 1751. In November, 1751, Lenormant de Tournehem died and Poisson de Vandières began his professional career. He was ennobled as marquis de Marigny in 1754 after the death of his father, François Poisson, from whom he inherited the château de Marigny-en-Orxois.

The post of Directeur et Ordonnateur Général des Bâtiments du Roi had extensive responsibility within the Maison du Roi. This ministry had oversight of new construction and repairs to all royal châteaux and properties and administered all royal commissions for works of painting, sculpture and engravings. Additionally, the Directeur des Bâtiments had under his supervision the royal academies of Architecture and of Painting and the Académie de France à Rome. The Bâtiments also supervised the royal manufactures of tapestry and carpets. After 1755, Marigny brought his travel companions Cochin fils and Soufflot into his administration where they played important roles. Soufflot was Controller of the Department of Paris, which included the Gobelins and Savonneries factories, while Cochin was chargé du détail des arts, a sort of principal intermediary between the administration and the academies.

The marquis de Marigny owned one of the most remarkable and best documented private collections of art assembled in the eighteenth century. Part of his collection was inherited from his sister, the marquise de Pompadour who was herself a major collector of imperial and modern Chinese ceramics. Marigny bought lacquer and other Japanese objects in his own right but the only way to distinguish his own purchases from those of Madame de Pompadour is by close comparison of their respective inventaires après décès.

Conquests of the Emperor of China

While the marquis de Marigny owned a significant collection of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and works of art his most significant contribution to European interaction with the Qing dynasty of China concerned the most important direct commission of western prints made for a Chinese buyer in the eighteenth century. The resulting suite of 16 exceptionally large copper plate engravings entitled Conquêtes de l’Empereur de la Chine were made in Paris between 1767 and 1773 by French engravers and etchers who were members of the French Royal Academy of Painters and Sculptors. The commission was given in the name of the Qianlong emperor 乾隆(1711-1799) through Han merchant intermediaries and the viceroy in Canton (Guangzhou 廣州). The Chinese imperial patron paid the very large sum 112,000 livres for the complex and highly sophisticated project. The surviving examples are rare. While there are thousands of instances of seventeenth- and eighteenth- century Europeans and other Westerners who acquired Chinese works of painting, woodblock prints, ceramics, jade, textiles, lacquer objects, furniture and metalwork, there were relatively few western objects identifiable today that were directly commissioned for the Chinese Emperor. The Chinese imperial patron, whose personal name was Aisin Gioro Hongli 愛新覺羅弘曆(1711-1799), was known by his reign name of Qianlong (reign 1735-1796). He was the fifth emperor of the Qing dynasty 清朝.

The commission had a long and circuitous gestation before it came into Marigny’s sphere of action in 1767. Qianlong initiated the project based upon a suite of paintings he commissioned in 1762 from his resident European Catholic missionary artists in Beijing to celebrate his own 1754-1759 East Turkestan military campaigns to reconquer and pacify Xinjiang and Illi. These paintings were displayed in the Tzu-kuang-ko (alternatively written Zi Guang Ge 紫光阁), a reception hall for foreign ambassadors in the Forbidden City in Peking (Beijing). In 1765, Qianlong asked the missionary artists Giuseppe Castiglione (1688-1766), Ignatius Sichelbarth (1708-1780), Denis Attiret (1702-1768) and Jean-Damascene Sallusti (?-1781) to make large ink drawing copies of the original paintings to serve as the models for the commission for European copper-plate engravings. Qianlong had seen examples of European panoramic battle pictures in the library of the Jesuit Mission at his court.

Qianlong ordered his viceroy in Canton to assign the commission to one of the European nations with a trading company but did not specify which nation should receive the award. The French Compagnie des Indes secured the commission and a contract was made in Canton in late 1765. Divided into four consignments of four drawings each, the first was sent to France via L’Orient arriving in August 1766. By December 1766, the existence of the commission was communicated by the Syndics of the Compagnie des Indes to French minister Henri Bertin who advised them to appeal to Marigny. On 17 December, 1766, the Sindics wrote to Marigny forwarding the contract placed with them by the Han trading house in Canton known by the name of Landeikou (P’an K’i-kouan) (Torres, 2009, 36-37). Bertin wrote to the Marquis de Marigny asking that the royal directorate of the arts undertake the Chinese emperor’s commission. In January 1767, Marigny assigned the overall direction of the project to Charles-Nicolas Cochin le fils who was chargé du détail des arts and himself the leading engraver in the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture.

The essential document identifying Marigny’s part in this commission is preserved in the minutes of a personal working session Marigny held with King Louis XV of France on 1 May 1767 (AN, O¹ 1055, 1 May, 1767). The entry entitled “Gravures des desseins représentant les conquêtes de l’Empereur de La Chine,” notes that on “Ledite jour envoyé au dit S(eigneur marquis de Marigny) un Bon du Roy par lequel Sa Majesté ordonne à Monsieur le Directeur général de faire graver par les 4 plus celebres artistes sous la Direction de M. Cochin quatre desseins des conquêtes que l’Empereur de La Chine a chargé ses mandarins d’envoyer en Europe et qui ont été adressés par le père Castiglion (sic) de l’ordre de l’Empereur à la compagnie des Indes pour les faire passer à Paris à cet effet et pour le payement desquelles gravures, il a été remis de la part de l’Empereur de La Chine aux préposés de la Compagnie des Indes établis à Canton la somme de 112,000 livres audite Bon est jointe une copie du décret de l’Empereur de La Chine en françois, une copie en latin et une copie en italien, la copie d’une lettre du Père Castiglion, un mémoire; plus une lettre de M. Bertin du 26 décembre 1766 écrite à Monsieur le Directeur général, une lettre de M(essieu)rs les Sindics et Directeur de la Compagnie des Indes de Paris à Monsieur le marquis de Marigny du 17 décembre 1766 et un pli adressé à Monsieur le Directeur général contenant les traductions latines et Italienne du décret de l’Empereur de la Chine. Ledite Bon et lesdites pièces enregistrées le 1er Mai 1767”.

Cochin recruited eight artists to execute the copper plates. Jacques-Philippe Le Bas (1707-1783) was assigned five plates (Numbers 2,3,4,7 & 16); Benoît-Louis Prévost (1735-1804) (Numbers 1 & 10); Jacques Aliamet (1726-1788) (Numbers 5 & 11); Augustin de Saint-Aubin (1736-1807) (Numbers 8 & 9); Pierre-Philippe Choffard (1730-1809) (Numbers 6 & 13); Nicolas De Launay (1739-1792) (Number 12); Louis-Joseph Masquelier (1741-1811) (Number 14); and François-Denis Née (1732-1817) (Number 15).

The original drawings by the missionary artists in Peking were exceptionally challenging to translate as they were uneven in their use of western perspective or mixed Asian pictorial devices with European artistic conventions. Cochin had to redraw many of them to provide models for his engravers. The drawings were also exceptionally large and Marigny insisted on having them engraved in their full original dimensions. This required ordering oversized copper plates from England and commissioning special large format paper, called Grand Louvois, from a foreign paper manufacturer.

Very few examples of the finished suite remained in Europe. The Bibliothèque du roi received a set, Marigny promised one set to Henri Bertin and he kept two sets for himself. Presumably, Cochin retained a set. All of the copper plates and all of the finished impressions were sent to Qianlong by 1773, along with a complete copper-plate press and tools. Thus copper-plate engraving was introduced to China.

The collection

The marquis de Marigny owned a large collection of especially fine examples of Chinese and Japanese porcelain and works of art many of which he inherited from his sister, the marquise de Pompadour. The graduated sized Qing Chinese vessels were used in the interior decoration of his houses and châteaux as surtout de cheminée while the large standing Tokugawa Japanese pillar vases were used in pairs probably flanking doorways. Very old and distinctive individual Chinese Yuan, Ming or Qing porcelain figures and vases were displayed in modern French gilt bronze mounts. Marigny’s furnishing frequently used elements of Japanese lacquer expropriated and incorporated into European furniture forms. Chinese and Indian textiles were used extensively as curtains and upholstery fabrics along with Persian or other non-western carpets. His importance for the history of Chinese exchange with Europe in the eighteenth century is based primarily on his role in the creation of the suite of engravings made under the orders of the marquis de Marigny by French artists under the direction of Charles-Nicolas Cochin fils between 1767 and 1773 known as the Conquêtes de l'empereur de la Chine discussed in the biographical notice. (Cochin, C.-N., Conquêtes de l’Empereur de La Chine and Torres, P., 2009) For his personal collection of over 60 pieces of Asian porcelain, many with expensive French gilt bronze mounts, see the 26 lots described in the Inventory after the death of the Marquis de Marigny et de Menars that were listed in the Gallery of the Hôtel de Menars (Hôtel de Massiac), on the Place des Victoires, Paris in the Inventaire après décès du marquis de Marigny et de Menars, (Minutier centrale, Étude XCIX 657, 1^er juin, 1781; Gordon A, 2003, pp. 312-313.)

p 312.

[940] Item 1004. Cinq vases de porcelaine de la chine couleur de lapis dont trois urnes et deux cornettes .. 84

p. 313

[941] 1005. Item trois forte urnes du Japon avec pagodes audessus …240#

[942] 1006. Item une autre grand urne de même a huit pans avec Coqs sur leur couvercles … 80

[943] 1007. Item quatre grands roulleux de porcelaine de la Chine couleur de lapis garnis de bords et pieds de bronze doré … 480#

[944] 1008 Item deux grandes urnes d’ancien Japon en forme de Lisbets fond bleu ornées de gorges de pieds de bronze dorés .. 720#

[945] 1009 Item une petite urne du Japon de même forme et dessein aussi garnie en bronze doré … 200 #

[946] 1010 (p. 313) Item deux Cornets de porcelaine du Japon a Boquets garnis de riches pieds en bronze doré prisé 160 #

[947] 1011. Item deux autres cornets de même porcelaine à modèles et pagodes l’un sur pieds quarrés en bronze doré … 150 #

[948] 1012. Item deux autres aussi du Japon avec animaux et feuillage … 72

[949] 1013. Item deux roulleaux de porcelaine de la Chine couleur de lapis …72

[950] 1014. Item quatre cornets de porcelaine du Japon a feuillages … 120

[951] 1015. Item deux atures [cornets] en porcelaine de la Chine a huit pans …48#

[952] 1016. Item deux vases forme de lisbets a panse ronde aussi de la Chine sur des pieds de bronze doré d’ancient gout … 96

[953] 1017. Item deux bouteilles de porcelaine de Nouveau La Chine a double fond doré avec anses en bronze doré … 48

[954] 1018. Item quatre autres bouteilles de même genre à lezards pris de relief dans la porcelaine …. 72

[955] 1019. Item deux grands roulleaux d’ancienne porcelaine de la Chine garnis en bronze doré d’ancien gout … 360#

[956] 1020. Item quatre aigles de porcelaine de la Chine fonds brun montés sur des pieds douche en bois doré .. 144

[957] 1021. Item deux aigles de porcelaine colorée du Japon sur des pieds de bronze doré … 300#

[958] 1022. Item deux cigognes de porcelaine de la Chine sur des pieds de bois doré … 60 #

[959] 1023. Item une grande jatte de porcelaine de la Chine fond bleu avec son plat de même porcelaine et dessins … 30#

[960] 1024. Item cinq grands plats de porcelaine du Japon et deux autres plus petits. Les sept prisés … 60#

[961] 1025. Item quartre moyens plats a carouches de même [Japon] porcelaine … 30#

[962] 1026. Item deux jattes de porcelaine de nouveau La Chine coloré et un plat de même porcelaine … 18

[963] 1027. Item un sceau de porcelaine de France …

[973] 1037 p. 314 Item deux petites urnes de Nouveau Japon un pot de Chambre et un pot à lait de porcelaine de France prisé 9#

[985] 1049 p. 314 Item deux cornets de porcealine Nouveau Japon multilés, quatre rouleaux à Pagodes dexu Lyons trois urnes deux cornets quatre bouteilles de porcelaine et deux grandes teyères en terre d’angleterre. La plupart de ces pièces mutilées prisés ensemble 100

Céramique: Japon

[946] 1010 (P. 313) Item deux Cornet de porcelaine du Japon a Boquets garnis de riches pieds en bronze doré prisé 160 #