Reflections on the Perronneau exhibition

For lovers of pastel, the event not just of the year, but of our lifetimes is currently on in Orléans (until 17 September [now extended to 22 October]): the first ever retrospective of Jean-Baptiste Perronneau, who many of us believe was the towering genius in that medium – as important as, and a better colourist, than La Tour; an artist more sophisticated than the now-fashionable Liotard and more profound than the ever-fashionable Rosalba.

Were those claims validated by the current show? That will take time to answer fully. And apart from the reassessment of Perronneau’s art, how did the exhibition itself do in more mundane terms – loans, presentation, catalogue etc.? That question is easier to answer: very well indeed. The staff at the musée des Beaux-Arts (headed by Olivia Voisin, but with paper conservator Valérie Luquet playing a vital role) deserve our warmest thanks, as does Dominique d’Arnoult on whose 2014 monograph the exhibition is founded.

The exhibition space is a suite of rooms in the basement of the musée, attractively designed and lit: the light levels are well within conservation limits, but the works are still clearly visible. The lighting is not so harsh as to distort the subtleties of Perronneau’s palette (the vogue for ever increasing temperatures has thankfully been arrested). Directional light can throw up occlusions in glass (with shadows appearing as blemishes on surface) and can highlight surface imperfections, but few troublesome examples were evident.

More important is the intelligent arrangement, which is chronological, with sensible divisions: five phases of Perronneau’s career laid out in seven rooms, with a further space for his posthumous reputation. Each room is given its own wall colour, from a range of pastel shades (do not judge them from images on social media, as the tones are a metaphor for the elusive nuances in Perronneau’s art). This colour coding helps overcome disorientation within the complex enfilade of openings and vistas, but I could not help feeling that these attention-seeking hues were more Ladurée than La Tour, and that their sugar-plum hyperactivity was at odds with the high seriousness of Perronneau’s art: he may have been a rococo painter, but he was not a painter of the Rococo.

That raises one of the particular issues for any Perronneau catalogue: he doesn’t reproduce well, because of his subtle nuances, to a greater extent than any other pastellist, and a fortiori any oil painter of the time. One of the issues with the 2014 catalogue raisonné was the decision to print half the book in black and white. But the exhibition catalogue hasn’t completely avoided criticism: despite the use of digital images of exceptionally high quality, the choice of a silk rather than gloss paper stock seems not to have optimised the colour settings, and the result is that many of the reproductions look too dark.

There are two approaches to organising monographic exhibitions of this kind. One is to court popularity by including only the artist’s best (or best known) work, often arranged thematically according to the latest vogue. The other is to take a scientific approach, including the widest range within the œuvre, however difficult, telling the story coherently (usually chronologically) and clearly; every autograph work extends our knowledge of the artist, and should be included. This exhibition firmly establishes its scholarly credentials with the latter approach. The chronology throws up few problems, and was largely well established even before d’Arnoult’s work (a couple of possible anomalies are noted below).

The show adds an excellent range of didactic and contextual aids. Boxes of pastel, displays of fabrics and touchable samples that bring out the haptic element of Perronneau’s materials are used to good effect, as are maps and archival documents which are all of real assistance in drawing visitors into Perronneau’s world. The final section is devoted to the nineteenth and early twentieth century connoisseurs whose love for Perronneau created the mystique, not to say shibboleth, his name has since enjoyed, albeit for an élite that this exhibition now seeks to democratise. It was, if we believe Reynaldo Hahn, Edmond de Goncourt’s view that Perronneau ranked “très au-dessus [de Chardin et de La Tour]”; while in 1884 Henry de Chennevières, a conservateur at the Louvre, dismissed Liotard’s pastels as not worth “le moindre ouvrage d’un élève de Perronneau.”

That brings us to the crucial issue for this show, and to the first question – the reassessment of Perronneau’s art. Everyone knows that borrowing pastels from major collections is next to impossible, for conservation reasons some of us continue to think are valid (by way of disclosure, I did not lend for this reason), so it is inevitable that a Perronneau show will omit some of his greatest work. That is no criticism of the superhuman efforts of the organisers. And while specialists may know those works and adjust expectations for their absence, others may not be able to do so, and will reach a potentially distorted assessment of his merit. It’s a tricky point, but it is the reviewer’s unhappy responsibility to make it with some clarity lest the general viewer goes away with the wrong impression.

Inevitably with pastellists who were also oil painters there is a further selection bias (as we saw in the Liotard 2015 exhibition in London) that exaggerates their skills in oil over pastel, as the former are more readily borrowed from major institutions. The 48 pastels by Perronneau, including the substantial holdings of the host museum (one hors catalogue), represent about a fifth of the known œuvre, while the 24 of his oil paintings constitute about one third of his surviving output in that medium. Nevertheless, we cannot blame this alone for the fact, as the exhibition makes all too apparent, that Perronneau was capable of producing works of the widest range of achievement (both in oil and pastel). One of the surprises here was that, in addition to some great masterpieces in oil (Orléans’s own Jousse or the National Gallery’s Cazotte, which looked really well; among the greatest oils, only Oudry was absent), there was a succession of frankly rather dull paintings which failed to sparkle. Who would think that the author of Mme de Sorquainville could also be responsible for Houbronne d’Auvringhen? And even the excitement of Dominique d’Arnoult’s important discovery of the painting of Charles de Lorraine, by far Perronneau’s most ambitious undertaking, must, it is sad to say, be accompanied by a certain disappointment that it is not more lively. One senses why he did not do more on this scale. For me too this is further evidence that while Perronneau was often a good, and occasionally great, painter, he was usually better in pastel, and (except where ruined) even his less inspired pastels have a something extra.

From the time when the artist himself sent his works to Paris from remote towns to the Salon, they have been moved relentlessly. He did not fix them (two at least we know were fixed by Loriot, one certainly years after Perronneau had delivered it, and after it had been sent to Paris to the Salon and returned to Orléans). This means that a great many of his pastels are now compromised. In this note I have tried to avoid too much discussion of the condition of works in private collections (the lenders rather deserve our gratitude for sharing their treasures with the public). But it is fair to say that the exhibits from museums as well as private collections showed condition issues to varying degrees.

While it could never be more than pure fantasy, one has to imagine how this exhibition would have left us feeling had it been possible to borrow more of the great masterpieces in pastel: among those a dozen that immediately come to mind, from the Louvre, Huquier, Mlle Huquier, Cars, “Bastard”, Bouguer, Van Robais, Tassin; from the Met, Olivier Journu (indeed the absence of any Journu portrait from his most fruitful trip was painfully felt); from Chicago, the enfant “Lemoyne”; from private collections, the Ollivier pendants or the 1772 man wrongly called Miron (J.582.1623). Among the pastels in the exhibition, perhaps only the superb Desfriches (reproduced at the top of this post) matches these in both quality and condition: all will surely agree that this is one of the supreme achievements in eighteenth century portraiture. (Coming close must be Drouais, the gorgeous Chevotet pendants, and the delightful Mlle Pinchinat en Diane all from Orléans; and five pastels from private sources (nos. 24, 38, 61, 66, 100) – three of these from just one Swiss collection, of which my personal favourite is the exquisite lady (no. 38, just above) formerly known as Jacquette d’Arche.) For however strong a pastel may have originally been, in any calculus of wall power today it is the product (not the sum) of quality and condition that matters. Think too of the last opportunity to see even two dozen Perronneau pastels together: the great 1927 exhibition in Paris. But those two dozen included six of the best.

To assess Perronneau, there must also be some point of reference. What does one do about his rivals? Are they to be omitted altogether, or a representative sample included? Can one do it by reproduction in the catalogue? Not really, any more than reproductions of the absent Perronneaus would suffice; the best alternative is the simultaneous hub idea, where several institutions with significant holdings arrange coordinated shows – an idea that seems invariably to fail at the hurdle of museum politics.

The approach taken here is a little strange. Of the vast number of pastels by more minor artists, there is no example – although Orléans might easily have supplied from its own collections examples by artists such as Coypel or Valade (the former’s self-portrait would neatly have faced Drouais, right; for the latter, see figs. 40a, 40b in my essay in the catalogue). They have however chosen to display, towards the end of the exhibition, in a room containing several quite weak Perronneaus, two of their own pastels by Chardin and La Tour. The latter is the one formerly known as the abbé Réglet (hors catalogue), and although run-of-the-mill for La Tour, its stunning characterisation and precision make it clear immediately why La Tour always had the edge in Paris (it is only when you see larger numbers of La Tour pastels together that the narrowness of his art can begin to pall). Of the beauty and profundity of the Chardin nothing further need be said.

An earlier room contains the other pastel interloper: La Tour’s famous self-portrait, in the Amiens version. Perhaps this was intended to serve as foil to the Perronneau portrait of La Tour in Saint-Quentin, which in the event was not lent. The La Tour, which never struck me as the best of his self-portraits, sat oddly isolated, its point lost. But surprisingly the opportunity for an even more compelling comparison was also lost: from its own recent acquisition, should Orléans not have put side by side Perronneau’s Mme Tourolle (for the dating of which, see under cat. 13 below) and La Tour’s Mme Restout from only a few years before?

The confrontation would have perfectly illustrated the differences. Perhaps the organisers thought better of rerunning the competition from which Perronneau spent the rest of his life escaping: to submit his posterity to the same ordeal a step too far. But while Perronneau would never win a direct confrontation with the obsessively neat and prodigiously talented La Tour, even this very early piece shows a propensity for fantasy and colouration that took him in a different direction. This exhibition allows us to follow him at least on a good part of the way.

Errata and suggestions for the exhibition catalogue

There follow some minor points on the catalogue. (Disclosure: I am the author of one of the essays in it, but while I should have preferred to offer these notes before the catalogue went to press it was not possible to do so.) Some of these points are discussed in my lecture at last week’s Perronneau colloque. The comments represent my personal opinion.

p. 9 It is odd to refer to Liotard as Étienne without the Jean. On his rejection from the Académie it is worth citing here my recent discovery of the original competition [http://www.pastellists.com/Essays/Liotardiana.pdf, p. 18] which significantly revises the date.

p. 15 “Perronneau ne possède rien”: after 8 years of his most productive period this seems unlikely. Rather as the correction in the notary’s copy of his marriage contract suggests, he simply refused to enumerate his assets.

p. 19 The gas cloud from Laki arrived in Amsterdam late June/early July according to the two contemporary sources in the article (Thordarson & Self) Arnoult 2014 cited in support of the date “3 November 1783”. By then deaths in Amsterdam were at a normal rate as my research in the Gaarders Archief showed.

p. 21f Ollivier was the Garde-Général, never the Intendant (the former is a commission, the latter an office, which is why there is so little biographical information on him until my research).

p. 25 Beaujon: why not cite Baillio’s original article, or my essay with the rediscovered pastel http://www.pastellists.com/Essays/VigeeLeBrun_Beaujon.pdf , or even just the Dictionary J.76.139 where readers can see the pastel and follow the links?

p. 27 Fig. 18. It is worth noting (since Cahen mistranscribed the name) that another prize winner was the Genevan miniaturist Robert Mussard (not Mullard) who was another friend.

p. 32 For Mlle Besnier see the Dictionary of pastellists where she has her own article and the sad biographical details of her and her sister.

p. 39 Christian Michel is more equivocal than d’Arnoult about the suggestion that this is an autoportrait. A comparison with the Cochin print in my opinion rules this out.

p. 40 Liotard fils letter: for “Beyers” read “Reyere”.

p. 48 The labels for fig. 39a / fig. 39b / fig. 39c are missing.

p. 49 The photo reproduced as fig. 40b is in fact a cropped version of J.47.307, not J.47.304 as described in the footnote. They are close replicas.

p. 53 The treatise on miniature is attributed to Boutet, but not the later appendix on pastel which is generally thought not to be by him as I discuss elsewhere: http://www.pastellists.com/Suppliers.html#B

p. 54 The identifications of the Michel de Grilleau couple are not settled, and there are good arguments both ways.

Catalogue (by number)

1          “Il pourrait figurer l’un de ses proches parents”: why, particularly if it is not by Perronneau himself? There is nothing to suggest his immediate relations would have been the subject of such a portrait from any other artist.

13        This soft, beautifully modelled and harmoniously coloured pastel looks much more sophisticated than other early work, and I am sceptical about the logical inference from the inscription. I would probably put it a few years later purely stylistically. A general note on J numbers (i.e. those cited in the online Dictionary of pastellists) might have been helpful to explain the otherwise obscure reference to J.46.133. However considerable caution is required with the far-fetched story of the Fozembas pastels which I think are more likely later pastiches than evidence of updating hairstyles.

16        Georges de Castellane, and his wife née Florinda Fernández y Anchorena [no hyphen before y]: the pastel was bought in London in 1936 by André Weil, not the Castellanes. It is unclear when and where “83 Pa” [J.582.1881] was purchased, as d’Arnoult conflates this with J.582.1854.

18        The text omits the location (Oréans, mBA).

20        This painting was (presumably upon reconsideration) omitted from the exhibition. The text of the entry seems to envisage that it might be an autograph study for the Hermitage portrait, but it is in my opinion a later copy. There still seem to be issues with the chronology of Perronneau’s painting: Arnoult 2014 seemed to accept the suggestion that the sitter was about 12 rather than 16, but still dated the Hermitage painting to c.1745 (the caption to fig. 25 now states 1744–46). For cat. 20 a date of c.1744 is proposed. The baptismal entry for the sitter, not in Arnoult 2014, as well as the letter was first transcribed and published by me.

21        There’s a lengthy discussion on the problems of the portraits of or not of d’Aubais in my essay http://www.pastellists.com/Essays/Perronneau_Aubais.pdf, although of course the original objection was d’Arnoult’s.

22        It would be helpful to be clearer about what is actually claimed for this pastel. Is it that 128 Pa might possibly be a reworking of the 12 Pa (in which case it should appear in the later section) or that is probably is the same picture (in which case it should be renumbered as 12 Pa). The absence of the earlier pastel seems inadequate evidence to suggest that this is an altered version: is there any indication of erasure apart from the signature? Why change the date without changing anything else? Perronneau had a habit of fiddling with his signed dates. The technique here strikes me overall as too late for 1746; to me it fits perfectly for the 1754 date which it bears.

23        The signature is unusual, as is the colour of the coat. The technique of the jabot is unlike Perronneau’s normal handling. The damage to the forehead does not appear in the recent photographs.

24/25  The comparison of the prices of pastel and oil versions is a little dangerous. The initial payment includes the sittings etc., and will always be higher than any repetition whatever the medium.

26        Mlle is unambiguous; Louise-Suzanne de La Roche ( –1750) was Mme de l’Épée.

29        The identification as Aubert remains conjectural.

32        It may not be clear how much of the new information on this sitter was published on my blog in 2015, the definitive version of which is my article at http://www.pastellists.com/Essays/Perronneau_Sorquainville.pdf

33        I express no view as to whether this oil painting is indeed by Perronneau (it is difficult to suggest any other name); but should it have been exhibited?

34        La Fontaine was born 1704.

36        Both La Tour’s birth and death dates are known exactly. The correct url is http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/LaTour.pdf

37        This is on parchment, not paper. The catalogue photograph reveals some curious markings all over the face which I saw in natural light in 2013; they are not so easily visible in the exhibition lighting.

38        Does the puzzling inscription refer to the date of execution or of reception? One month before reception, it cannot be that of contemporaneous execution; the error in the month suggests that the inscription may have been later.

39        The puzzling links between this pastel and the San Francisco pastel 411 Pa cannot easily be explained. I have not seen the latter, and wonder if it is completely “right”.

41        Jean Valade was born in 1710, not 1709 (baptised 27.xi.1710, Poitiers, Saint-Paul). He advanced to full reception at the Académie in 1754.

42        “Johan George Wille” [sic] indicates a certain confusion regarding foreign names which recurs elsewhere.

47/48  Although I may have suggested the new identification of the sitters, the proposal remains problematic, and requires too much space to set out all the (inconclusive) evidence.

49        Pierre Buffereau de la Varenne: the (1658) is unattached, but is presumably a revised date of birth. His dates were 1656–1721 according to Cuénin, but the birth is uncertain.

54        It is unclear to me why d’Arnoult assumes the 1755 pictures (132 Pa, 133 Pa) were in pastel.

55        There are important differences with the notary’s paper version of this contract, which includes significant alterations not present in this engrossment, including the alterations of his wife’s name initialled by her parents throughout and the deletion of the list of his assets. For my annotations of the various people included, see http://www.pastellists.com/Misc/Perronneau_chronology.pdf. Just a few examples: “un Sieur Isaac Van Ryneveld hollandois” is the subject of a Tocqué portrait. For “Laurent Laroche” read “Sauveur Laroche”. The banker “Louis Daniel” and the allegedly missing “Raguenaud de Lachainaye” are the same person, Louis-Daniel Ragueneau de La Chenaye (not his grandson Armand-Henri Raguenaud de Lachainaye, as indexed in Arnoult 2014); he was the son-in-law of Jean-Louis Babault.

58        Dimensions omitted: probably c.60×48 cm, although the sight size is smaller.

59        Lycett Green has no hyphen.

62        193 Pa is of M. Eymard. A link to http://www.pastellists.com/Essays/Perronneau_Lyon.pdf might have been helpful. The identification of 195 Pa and 196 Pa is speculative.

67        For more information and a possible identification of Moule see http://www.pastellists.com/Suppliers.html#M. The Perronneau chronological table has more biographical information on Maelrondt. And for more information on the prices of pastel materials (this was evidently a price for royals), see my Prolegomena: http://www.pastellists.com/Misc/Prolegomena.pdf. There is more on Stoupan at http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/STOUPAN.pdf. The claims of the Maison du pastel to date back to 1720 are considered at http://www.pastellists.com/Suppliers.html#R

68        For more on Chaperon (not de Chaperon), see http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Chaperon.pdf. A searchable transcription of much of the treatise appears on http://www.pastellists.com/Misc/Treatises.pdf

70        Pierre-Honoré Robbé de Beauveset was not born in Vendôme, at an uncertain date, as so often stated, but in Paris, on 29 mai 1714, and baptised 5 juin 1714 at Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles (AN LXVI/416, 7.i.1730: I don’t think this is to be found in any published source).

71        Laurent Cars was born/baptised at Lyon, St Nizaire, 28 mai 1699. His mother was Marie Barbery, not Babuty – it was one of Laurent Cars’s sisters who married Greuze’s brother-in-law.

75        This is probably not of Lucy (not Lucie) Young, Countess of Rochford, but a birth in 1714 would make this even less likely. GEC states that she died in 1773 aged 50, and I am unaware of any recent evidence to the contrary.

76        Markgraf, margrave or Margrave? Karoline Luise here, but Caroline Louise elsewhere (de Bade p. 130 etc). If Baden-Durlach, then “Hessen–Darmstadt”.

84        There is an entry on Jules-Alexandre Patrouillard Degrave, with his year of death (1932), at http://www.pastellists.com/Suppliers.html#D .

86        Mme Perronneau was actually baptised Charles-Louise Aubert, presumably with her grandfather as parrain. The date can be fixed to between November 1740 and February 1741. Mme Gabriel was the sister-in-law of the celebrated architect, Ange-Jacques Gabriel. The advertisement which I found may not have led to the recovery of the lost pastel, as I find it surprising to think that Perronneau would have opened the sealed work and added a new date; unless of course it had been damaged. There has been some confusion about the identity of the sitter caused by an erroneous label on the back of a photo formerly in the files in Orléans: the eye colour confirms this is not of Perpétue-Félicité, Mme Cadet de Limay, as d’Arnoult justly corrected. Alexandre-Joseph-Urbain Perronneau was baptised 10 novembre, not septembre (cf. chronologie, p. 179; three different months are given in Arnoult 2014: cf. pp. 158, 184, 365, 369).

p. 152: “Karl, prince von Hessen-Kassel” [sic]

87        This appears to be on parchment rather than paper.

88/89  According to various sources, Denis MacCarthy, seigneur de Beaujé et Fonvidal came from Castle Cloghan near Skibereen; his wife was Jane Fitzgerald from the Waterford family. An inscription on an old cloister wall in the rue Saint-Louis, Bordeaux gives Denis’s exact dates, 13 avril 1719 – 18 juin 1796. Although they had no son, a daughter Anne (born 1756) was educated by the Blue Nuns in Paris. His elder nephew was Donal, or Daniel, not Donald.

90        It is unclear why this is thought to have belonged to Dumas père. The longer discussion in Arnoult 2014, p. 297, appears to rely on the preface to Dumas fils’s 1892 sale in support of this, but the passages cited do not refer to Dumas père but to Dumas fils. Indeed Ytriarte says that Dumas père did not have the time or money to buy many pictures etc. The miniature appears rather to be signed “C. Lebelle”, not E. Le Bel; its relationship with a 1783 watercolour by Ch. Le Bel, engraved by Gaucher (v. Saunier 1922, p. 26 n.r.) is unclear. He is surely the “Lebel” listed, with the address left blank, in the Étrennes orléanaises in 1775 (p. 86) as a “peintre en mignature”. It does not seem that he should be conflated with the pastellist Antoine Lebel.

92        The identification of the Saint-Aubin sketch in the salon livret is ingenious, but leaves open the question as to whether the rectangular pastel in the exhibition was originally framed with oval spandrels or is a second version. The “joüe brullée” may still refer to the Mademoiselle Gaugy: that would be consistent with my tentative identification of her as Ursule-Rose Gaugy (1754– ), fille des parents mariés à Martinique.

93        The stencilled code on the back indicates that the pastel was sent to Christie’s for evaluation but not consigned for sale.

95        This was also in Amsterdam 1934, no. 37. (95, 96 & 107; p. 18 B): all the names ending sz are abbreviations of patronymics and need a full point (if they should appear at all). Claude de Narbonne-Pelet, baron de Salgas was born in 1728; he was the subject of a pastel by Belle de Charrière.

98        The 1918 sale, albeit much delayed, was the posthumous sale of the collection formed by Albert, vicomte de Curel rather than of his son (no doubt he was by then the beneficiary).

100      Pauline Isnard-Laurent was baptised in Saint-Denis-en-Val 3.ix.1762; she is 9 or 10, not 14 at the time of the portrait. The confusion may have arisen because the person who wrote the inscription on the back misread Perronneau’s date as 1777, and deduced she was 14; this age has now been subtracted from 1772 to yield a birth “vers 1758”.

101      There are a number of fragile steps to reach this suggested identification. By deleting (from the original notice in Arnoult 2014) the reference to the Nonnotte portrait of Jean-Pierre, the logic looks even stranger.

102      This is not “Arnoult, 2014, 358 Pa” as stated, but 367 P.

103      While indeed the identification is conjectural, it is mildly supported by the fact that Jacques-François Chéreau’s aunt was married to Jacques-Gabriel Huquier, and that he was present at the inventory of veuve Huquier in 1775. “Chéreau” with an accent seems to be the commoner spelling (although accents weren’t written at the time).

104      The combinations of languages in the names and titles of Karl von Hessen-Kassel and his wife, recte Lovisa (Luisa on p. 166, Louisa on p. 180), are confusing.

p. 170   Both 1909 and 1923 editions were co-authored with Léandre Vaillat. “Jacques Émile Blanche” elsewhere is hyphenated.

114      For “Non repr. in” read “Non repr. In” or better, reword. “Russel” may have been misspelled at the time, but shouldn’t be now (the 1908 livret was correct).

Additions to the exhibition not in the catalogue

(Only paintings and pastels are noted here.)

Nonnotte, portrait of Desfriches, huile sur toile (Orléans, mBA)

Anonyme, portrait de Jean Hupeau et de sa famille, huile sur toile (Orléans, mBA)

La Tour, portrait d’un abbé (dit abbé Réglet), pastel (Orléans, mBA; see Dictionary, J.46.2679 where full details may be found)

Perronneau, Mme Boyetet de Boissy, pastel (J.582.1056 )

Chronologie pp. 177ff

1708, 1730 &c  these entries based on the new documents I first transcribed

1760     for “hospice” read “hôpital”

1766    “9 novembre” Various dates given throughout Arnoult 2014, pp. 134, 158, 365, 369. Although he was baptised 10.xi.1766, is it certain that he was born the previous day?

1772     for “16 avril” read “6 avril”; the tenant is René-Jean Lemoine.

1781     for “de sir Harris” read “de Sir James Harris”. Delete “Gazeta” (that’s what Vedomosti means).

1783    for “40 ans” read “42”

1784    The application for dispensation was published on my blog and essay.

Lettre p. 182

For a slightly different transcription and gloss, see my Perronneau Documents file http://www.pastellists.com/Misc/Perronneau_chronology.pdf

Bibliographie

A number of copy editing issues (including those with italics in titles) remain despite my previous corrections.

Index

There remain a number of confusions, with separate entries for “Bade, Caroline Louise de”, and “Hessen-Darmstadt, Karoline Luise von”. “Leszczynska, Marie” [sic] appears before “Le Grix”. “Maupeou, René Charles-Augustin de” appears to combine elements of father and son. Although supposedly an index of proper names, a long list of entries such as “Portrait d’un homme…” appears, under P (this is a peculiar convention rather bafflingly followed by many French publishers).

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