Difference between revisions of "Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson"

From SiefarWikiEn

Jump to: navigation, search
[checked revision][checked revision]
(Created page with '{{Infobox Siefar | image = | fr = Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson | title(s)= Marquise de Pompadour | spouses =Charles-Guillaume Lenormant d'Étiolles | also known as = Madame d'Éti…')
 
 
Line 11: Line 11:
 
}}
 
}}
 
== Entry by [[Alden R. Gordon]], 2003 ==
 
== Entry by [[Alden R. Gordon]], 2003 ==
 +
 +
Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born in Paris on Dec. 29, 1721 to François Poisson and Louise-Madeleine de La Motte. Her parents were members of the Parisian financial class specializing in victualing the army. Her maternal grandfather, Jean II de La Motte, held the contract to supply meat to the Hôtel des Invalides. Her father was a chief agent of the powerful Pâris family of financiers, who became embroiled in the intrigue that ousted the Duke of Bourbon as head of the Regency council in favor of Cardinal Fleury. Poisson was found guilty of profiteering on the grain supply and fled into exile in 1727 just after the birth of Antoinette's brother, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (d. 1781), future Marquis de Marigny et de Menars. Jeanne-Antoinette attended the convent school of the Ursulines at Poissy where her aunt Élisabeth de La Motte lived and taught under the name "soeur sainte Perpétue". By the end of 1730 she had returned to live with her mother in Paris in the house of Charles-François-Paul Lenormant de Tournehem (1684-1751) who protected the family and gave the two children an excellent education. Her mother pressed for an amnesty and return from exile for her husband and succeeded in 1736. In 1738 Mme Poisson bought a fine house at 50 rue de Richelieu. The family lived reunited in this house until March 1741, when Jeanne-Antoinette married Charles-Guillaume Lenormant d'Étiolles (1717-1800), the nephew of Lenormant de Tournehem. The newlyweds with Lenormant de Tournehem moved to 364-370 rue Saint-Honoré. Mme D'Etiolles and Mme Poisson attended the salon of Mme de Tencin. As Mme d'Étiolles she instated a salon of her own, which included Fontenelle, Voltaire, Maupertuis, and the abbé de Bernis. She had a group of special friends from the years of her marriage whom she called her "petits chats": the Duchesse de Chevreuse and Mesdames de Sassenage, de Chabannais, d'Esparbes and d'Amblimont. In 1741 her first child Charles Guillaume Louis Lenormant d'Étiolles was born and baptized at the parish church of Saint-Paul. This baby died in infancy. Her second child, a daughter, Alexandrine Jeanne Lenormant d'Étiolles was born in 1744. The greatest personal tragedy of Jeanne-Antoinette's life was the death of her daughter in 1754 from appendicitis.
 +
 +
In early 1745, Mme d'Étiolles was introduced to Louis XV during the festivities celebrating the marriage of the Dauphin. By May she was a subject of conversation at court and the target of slanders. She separated from her husband. By August, Louis XV had settled on ennobling her as an independent woman with the estate and title of Marquise de Pompadour. She was presented at court in October, 1745. She remained "maîtresse en titre" until her death, though her physical relationship with the king ended in 1750. She had her greatest influence upon the government through her solicitation for an appointment for her brother. Louis XV named him to the succession of the Direction Générale des Bâtiments du Roi in 1745 when he was only seventeen. To hold the place for him, the King named Tournehem as Directeur des Bâtiments. Both men performed with distinction, Abel-François coming to the post in 1751 upon the death of Tournehem and serving until 1773.
 +
Mme de Pompadour was a supporter of the Encyclopédie, of Voltaire's appointment as historiographer to the crown and of the creation of the École Royale Militaire. She was a shareholder of the Vincennes porcelain factory, later moving the works to a site at Sèvres near her own château de Bellevue. In her private art patronage, she promoted the career of the lapidary gem carver Jacques Guay, whose works she celebrated in a series of prints which she herself made after drawings prepared for her by François Boucher, Joseph-Marie Vien and Guay. In all she made 72 prints. Her houses were decorated with fine pictures by modern French artists, with preference for the work of Boucher and Carle Vanloo, but included works by artists such as Claude-Joseph Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. The collaboration of Boucher and Madame de Pompadour was exceptional in the history of the century and she should be credited with causing Boucher to become a great portrait painter.
 +
 +
She died on April 15, 1764 in the château de Versailles and was buried two days later in the Chapel of the Capucine Convent on the Place Louis le Grand (Place Vendôme). The church was demolished in 1806 and the site is today bisected by the rue de La Paix.
  
 
== Works ==
 
== Works ==

Latest revision as of 15:15, 17 August 2011

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson
Title(s) Marquise de Pompadour
Spouses Charles-Guillaume Lenormant d'Étiolles
Also known as Madame d'Étiolles
Madame de Pompadour
Biography
Birth date 1721
Death 1764
Biographical entries in old dictionaries
Dictionnaire Fortunée Briquet


Entry by Alden R. Gordon, 2003

Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was born in Paris on Dec. 29, 1721 to François Poisson and Louise-Madeleine de La Motte. Her parents were members of the Parisian financial class specializing in victualing the army. Her maternal grandfather, Jean II de La Motte, held the contract to supply meat to the Hôtel des Invalides. Her father was a chief agent of the powerful Pâris family of financiers, who became embroiled in the intrigue that ousted the Duke of Bourbon as head of the Regency council in favor of Cardinal Fleury. Poisson was found guilty of profiteering on the grain supply and fled into exile in 1727 just after the birth of Antoinette's brother, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières (d. 1781), future Marquis de Marigny et de Menars. Jeanne-Antoinette attended the convent school of the Ursulines at Poissy where her aunt Élisabeth de La Motte lived and taught under the name "soeur sainte Perpétue". By the end of 1730 she had returned to live with her mother in Paris in the house of Charles-François-Paul Lenormant de Tournehem (1684-1751) who protected the family and gave the two children an excellent education. Her mother pressed for an amnesty and return from exile for her husband and succeeded in 1736. In 1738 Mme Poisson bought a fine house at 50 rue de Richelieu. The family lived reunited in this house until March 1741, when Jeanne-Antoinette married Charles-Guillaume Lenormant d'Étiolles (1717-1800), the nephew of Lenormant de Tournehem. The newlyweds with Lenormant de Tournehem moved to 364-370 rue Saint-Honoré. Mme D'Etiolles and Mme Poisson attended the salon of Mme de Tencin. As Mme d'Étiolles she instated a salon of her own, which included Fontenelle, Voltaire, Maupertuis, and the abbé de Bernis. She had a group of special friends from the years of her marriage whom she called her "petits chats": the Duchesse de Chevreuse and Mesdames de Sassenage, de Chabannais, d'Esparbes and d'Amblimont. In 1741 her first child Charles Guillaume Louis Lenormant d'Étiolles was born and baptized at the parish church of Saint-Paul. This baby died in infancy. Her second child, a daughter, Alexandrine Jeanne Lenormant d'Étiolles was born in 1744. The greatest personal tragedy of Jeanne-Antoinette's life was the death of her daughter in 1754 from appendicitis.

In early 1745, Mme d'Étiolles was introduced to Louis XV during the festivities celebrating the marriage of the Dauphin. By May she was a subject of conversation at court and the target of slanders. She separated from her husband. By August, Louis XV had settled on ennobling her as an independent woman with the estate and title of Marquise de Pompadour. She was presented at court in October, 1745. She remained "maîtresse en titre" until her death, though her physical relationship with the king ended in 1750. She had her greatest influence upon the government through her solicitation for an appointment for her brother. Louis XV named him to the succession of the Direction Générale des Bâtiments du Roi in 1745 when he was only seventeen. To hold the place for him, the King named Tournehem as Directeur des Bâtiments. Both men performed with distinction, Abel-François coming to the post in 1751 upon the death of Tournehem and serving until 1773. Mme de Pompadour was a supporter of the Encyclopédie, of Voltaire's appointment as historiographer to the crown and of the creation of the École Royale Militaire. She was a shareholder of the Vincennes porcelain factory, later moving the works to a site at Sèvres near her own château de Bellevue. In her private art patronage, she promoted the career of the lapidary gem carver Jacques Guay, whose works she celebrated in a series of prints which she herself made after drawings prepared for her by François Boucher, Joseph-Marie Vien and Guay. In all she made 72 prints. Her houses were decorated with fine pictures by modern French artists, with preference for the work of Boucher and Carle Vanloo, but included works by artists such as Claude-Joseph Vernet and Jean-Baptiste Greuze. The collaboration of Boucher and Madame de Pompadour was exceptional in the history of the century and she should be credited with causing Boucher to become a great portrait painter.

She died on April 15, 1764 in the château de Versailles and was buried two days later in the Chapel of the Capucine Convent on the Place Louis le Grand (Place Vendôme). The church was demolished in 1806 and the site is today bisected by the rue de La Paix.

Works

- 72 gravures faites entre 1752 et 1764, réunies et publiées de manière posthume comme: Suite de soixante-douze Estampes gravées par Madame la Marquise de Pompadour d'après les Pierres gravées de Guay, Graveur du Roi. Paris, Chez Basan, 1782.
- Correspondance avec son père, M. Poisson et son frère, M. de Vandières... suivi de lettres de cette dame à la comtesse de Lutzelbourg, Paul-Emmanuel-Auguste Poulet Malassis éd., Paris, J. Baur, 1878.
- D'autres lettres dans le Catalogue of the Collection of Autograph Letters and Historical Documents formed between 1865 and 1882 by the late Alfred Morrison, W. Thibodeau éd., 1891.

Selected bibliography

- Madame de Pompadour et les arts (cat. d'expo., Versailles, Musées des châteaux de Versailles et des Trianons, 2002). Xavier Salmon, Helge Seifert, Humphrey Wine éds. Paris, Réunion des Musées nationaux, 2002.
- Goodman, Elise. The Portraits of Madame de Pompadour: Celebrating the Femme Savante. Berkeley, University of California Press, 2000.
- Gordon, Alden R. "The Longest Enduring Pompadour Hoax: Sénac de Meilhan and the Journal de Madame du Hausset," in Elise Goodman (éd.), Art and Culture in the Eighteenth Century: New Dimensions and Multiple Perspectives. Newark, N. J. et Londres, Associated University Presses, 2001, 28-38.
- Lever, Evelyne. Madame de Pompadour. Paris, Perrin, 2000.
- Weisbrod, Andrea. Von Macht und Mythos der Pompadour: Die Mätressen im politischen Gefuge des französischen Absolutismus. Königstein/Taunus, Ulrike Helmer Verlag, 2000.

Selected bibliography of images

- Jean-Baptiste Pigalle. Madame de Pompadour. 1748-1751. Buste en marbre. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art _ Madame de Pompadour et les arts (voir supra), fig. p.280.
- Jean-Marc Nattier, Madame de Pompadour en Diane. 1746. Huile sur toile. Vendue aux enchères, Sotheby's, Londres, le 10 juillet, 2003 _ Madame de Pompadour et les arts (voir supra), fig. 1, p.142.
- Maurice Quentin de La Tour, Madame de Pompadour. 1755. Pastel sur carton, monté sur toile. Paris, Musée du Louvre -- Goodman (voir supra), Plate 3.
- François Boucher, Portrait de Madame de Pompadour. 1756. Huile sur toile. Munich, Alte Pinakothek (prêté par la Hypovereinsbank) -- Goodman (voir supra), Plate 4.
- François-Hubert Drouais, Madame de Pompadour à son métier à broder. 1763. Huile sur toile. Londres, National Gallery of Art -- Madame de Pompadour et les arts (voir supra), fig. p.163.

Reception

- «Mlle. Poisson, femme Lenormand, marquise d'Étiolles de Pompadour, que tout homme aurait voulu avoir pour maîtresse, était d'une grande taille de femme, sans l'être trop. Un visage rond, tous les traits réguliers, un teint superbe, très bien faite, une main et un bras superbes, elle avait des yeux plus jolis que grands, mais d'un feu, d'un spirituel, d'un brillant que je n'ai vu à aucune femme. Elle était arrondie dans toutes ses formes comme dans tous ses mouvements» (Jean-Nicolas Dufort de Cheverny, Mémoires, Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1886, à partir d'un manuscrit écrit en 1792-4; réédité à Paris, Perrin, 1990, p.97).
- «Je trouvai là (chez Pont-de-Veyle) une des plus jolies femmes que j'aie jamais vues; c'est madame d'Etiolles: elle sait la musique parfaitement, elle chante avec toute la gaîté et tout le goût possible, sait cent chansons, joue la comédie à Etiolles sur un théâtre aussi beau que celui de l'Opéra, où il y a des machines et des changemens» (Président Hénault dans une lettre à Madame du Deffand, le 18 juillet, 1742 (Marie Anne de Vichy Chamrod, Marquise du Deffand de La Land, Correspondance inédite de Mme Du Deffand avec d'Alembert, Montesquieu, le Président Hénault, la duchesse du Maine; mesdames de Choiseul, de Staal, le marquis d'Argens, le Chevalier d'Aydie, etc. suivie des lettres de M. de Voltaire à Mme. Du Deffand, Paris, Léopold Collin, 1809, 2 vols., t.2, p.120-125).
- «Madame de Pompadour mourut au moment où on la croyait hors de péril. Eh bien, qu'est-il resté de cette femme qui nous a épuisés d'hommes et d'argent, laissés sans honneur et sans énergie, et qui a bouleversé le système politique de l'Europe? Le traité de Versailles qui durera ce qu'il pourra, l'Amour de Bouchardon qu'on admirera à jamais, quelques pierres gravées de Guay qui étonneront les antiquaires à venir, un bon petit tableau de Vanloo qu'on regardera quelquefois; et une pincée de cendres» (Denis Diderot, Salon de 1765, dans sa critique de Carle Vanloo, Les Arts Suppliants).

Personal tools
In other languages