Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Boucon (1708-1780)

Prints and Drawings

c. 1752

Maurice-Quentin de La Tour
French, 1704–1788

In 1747, the noted violinist and composer Jean-Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville married Anne-Jeanne Boucon (1708-1780), the daughter of a great art collector and herself a noted musician. She asked La Tour to make her likeness but claimed she could only pay half his usual rate. It is said that La Tour drew this complex, powerful portrait in just one sitting. When Mme de Mondonville sent him the amount she had promised, their friendship was ruptured.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Prints and Drawings

Artist: Maurice Quentin de Latour
Title: Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Boucon (1708-1780)
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1752
Medium: Pastel on blue-gray laid paper, laid down on canvas and wrapped around a strainer, enlarged by the artist with a band of paper about 3 cm high
Dimensions: 66 × 55 cm (26 × 21 11/16 in.)
Credit Line: Charles H. and Mary F. S. Worcester Collection
Reference Number: 2001.53
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/155913/manifest.json

Pierre Jean Mariette, Abecedario et autres notes inédites de cet amateur, ouvrage publié d’après les manuscrits autographes conservés au Cabinet des Estampes de la Bibliothèque Impériale, et annoté par MM. Ph. de Chennevières et A. de Montaiglon, vol. 3 (Paris, 1854-1856), pp. 73-74.
Maurice Tourneux, La Tour (Paris, 1904), pp. 52 and 99.
Edmond and Jules de Goncourt, L’art du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1885) vol. 2, pp. 238-40; 1906 ed., vol. 1, pp. 291, and 304-05.
André Tessier, “Le Portrait de Mondonville au Musée de Saint-Quentin” in Le Figaro: Supplément Artistique, December 29, 1927, pp. 162-63 and cover illustration.
Albert Besnard, La Tour. La vie et l’oeuvre de l’artiste. Catalogue critique par Georges Wildenstein (Paris, 1928), pp. 17, 20, 22, 38, 44, 111, 127-29, 157, nos. 344-5 (for Monsieur); nos. 347-48, p. 157 (for Madame).
Alfred Leroy, Maurice Quentin de la Tour et la société française du XVIIIe siècle (Paris, 1953), p. 41.
Élie Fleury and Gaston Brière, Collection Maurice-Quentin de la Tour à Saint-Quentin (Saint-Quentin, 1954), p. 62, no. 38 (re: replica and Art Institute pair).
Adrian Bury, Maurice Quentin de La Tour, The Greatest Pastel Portraitist (London, 1971), pls. 54-55 (replica).
Christine Debrie, Maurice-Quentin de La Tour: “peintre de portraits au pastel,” 1704-1788 au Musée Antoine Lecuyer de Saint-Quentin, 1991, pp. 144-47 (ill. replica in Saint-Quentin).
Suzanne Folds McCullagh, “Jean Joseph Cassanéa de Mondonville; Anne Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville,” The Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, 1, pp. 76-77 (ill.).

Paris, Salon, 1753, cat. 76.
Paris, Salon de la Correspondance, 1782, listed as from the Cabinet of M. de Mondonville Fils.

M. and Mme. de Mondonville [invoice]; by descent to their son, to 1782 [invoice]. Deloynes, France [invoice]. Private Collection, Liege [invoice]. Watel-Dehaynin, 1920s-2001 [invoice]. Sold by Emmanuel Moatti, New York and Paris, to the Art Institute, 2001.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Portrait of Madame Anne-Jeanne Cassanéa de Mondonville, née Boucon (1708-1780)

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.