Perronneau in Orléans
The event dix-huitiémistes have been waiting for is nearly upon us: the first retrospective devoted to Jean-Baptiste Perronnneau, mounted in the town which he visited so often and which has its own unparalleled collection of Perronneau pastels. Here are the details (they do not seem to have made it into the calendars of The Art Newspaper or La Tribune de l’art):
Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, portraitiste de génie dans l’Europe des Lumières
17 juin – 16 septembre
Orléans, musée des Beaux-Arts
I haven’t yet seen the catalogue (apart from my own small contribution), but it promises to be attractive and affordable. Of course for the full Perronneau immersion to prepare yourselves for the exhibition (or for the many works which cannot travel to it), you need to read Dominique d’Arnoult’s catalogue raisonné, published by Arthena at the end of 2014. But as it’s quite expensive and not widely available in libraries, you might also want to consult the extensive information available on Pastels & pastellists (the website of the online Dictionary of pastellists with ancillary material).
As the information is spread over a good many different files on the site, here is a short guide as to where to look.
The principal Perrronneau article is divided into the following pdfs:
- Part I: Essay; salon critiques
The essay provides a general introduction and biography of the artist, together with a full bibliography. It is followed by complete extracts of all contemporary salon critiques mentioning his work. The following four files include the catalogue of his pastels arranged in accordance with the Dictionary’s rules, i.e. by name of sitter (the Dictionary does not catalogue his oil paintings, which represent nearly a fifth of his work: for those you will have to consult Arnoult):
- Part II: Named sitters A–E
- Part III: Named sitters F–L
- Part IV: Named sitters M–Z
- Part V: Unidentified sitters &c
A separate file rearranges the images of dated or dateable pastels in chronological order, here.
The approach taken in Arnoult, particularly in relation to works known only from mentions, is different, and to compare the different coverage you may find this Concordance with Arnoult 2014 of help.
Pastels & pastellists also has a useful
which contains full transcriptions of a great many biographical documents, a number of which are not in Arnoult.
There are also genealogies for the Aubert; Marteau; Perronneau families.
Pastels & pastellists also contains a great many essays which are indexed from this page. The following relate to specific works by Perronneau or about him:
Perronneau, Les trois “marquis d’Aubais”, 1746
Perronneau, M. & Mme Ollivier, 1748
La Joconde du XVIIIe siecle [Perronneau, Mme de Sorquainville, 1749]
Perronneau, Col. Joseph Yorke [oil], 1754
Perronneau, Two portraits of the Journu family, 1756–57
Perronneau, Pierre-Lazare Dumas, 1768
The fixer fixed: Loriot in Orléans
Perronneau: rectification d’erreur
Perronneau’s trip to Lyon in 1759
In search of Perronneau’s lost years (in Spain)
Mme veuve Perronneau’s second marriage
Some absent-minded pastellists
A few of these are expanded versions of posts that have appeared on this blog (the versions on Pastels & pastellists are the ones of permanent record and should be cited in preference to the blog).
Among more recent blog posts that have not (or not yet) been transferred into essays on the site are:
More Perronnoia: his brother’s letter
Some further minutiae are signalled from time to time on my Twitter feed.
Neil Jeffares 