Jean Valade (1710-1787)

Jean VALADE (1710-1787)

Young Woman with a Pardessus de Viole

Pastel on paper mounted on canvas

60 x 50 cm

Circa 1780

Provenance:

Collection Marius Paulme (1863-1928);

Sold at the Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 13-15 May 1929, vol. 2, 14 May 1929, no. 257, pl. 170 (under the name of Antoine Vestier), 37,000 fr.

Anonymous sale, Paris, Crédit Municipal de Paris, 20 December 1962 (under the name of Antoine Vestier).

Bibliography:

Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1880, Online version (updated 24 January 2025), Valade, p. 13, J.74.388.

This magnificent pastel depicting a woman playing the Pardessus de Viole is as valuable for the quality of its execution as for the rarity of its subject. From the collection of the famous expert and collector Marius Paulme, our pastel, formerly attributed to Antoine Vestier, has been reintegrated into the oeuvre of Jean Valade and is considered one of the artist's masterpieces.

Born in Poitiers in 1710, Jean Valade probably began his apprenticeship with his father Léonard Valade (?-1720), a ‘master painter’. It was after his arrival in Paris in 1739 that he really trained, first in the studio of Charles Antoine Coypel (1694-1752), the king's first painter and a member of the French School, and then with Louis Tocqué (1696-1772). He was admitted to the Académie Royale in 1750, was appointed an academician in 1754 and became the King's official painter. A prolific artist, he produced almost as many pastels as his contemporaries Maurice-Quentin de la Tour and Jean-Baptiste Perronneau.

Our pastel is a testament to Valade's skill. The elegance of the pose and the delicacy of the expression are characteristic of the artist's work, as is the balanced and dynamic composition, punctuated by the subtle contrasts of textures and colours. The care taken with the accessories and materials is impressive. The softness with which he renders the textures and the hair is particularly remarkable. We recognise his luminous palette, testimony to the influence of Coypel, which he was able to make his own and which still arouses admiration today.

Although the identity of our musician has not been revealed to us, we know that Valade frequented the elites of his time and produced numerous portraits for aristocratic families such as the Duras, the Faventine, the Lamoignon, the Pinson, etc (1). It is not impossible that the beautiful woman in this portrait is one of them. She is also wearing a hairstyle that was fashionable in the early 1780s. Known as the ‘child's’ hairstyle, it was invented by the hairdresser Léonard and popularised by Queen Marie-Antoinette after the birth of the Dauphin to conceal hair loss. Similarly, she is wearing a simple, loose-fitting Levite dress, inspired by the oriental costumes worn by the actresses in Racine's plays at the Théâtre Français and made fashionable by the queen during her first pregnancy. On her wrist, the portrait of a man, mounted as a bracelet, a recurring motif in female portraits of the time, informs us of her status as a married woman.

This charming model rests her left hand gracefully on a viola da gamba overcoat placed on her knees, the posture required to play it. It is one of the rare representations of this now-defunct instrument. Higher-pitched and smaller than other violas da gamba, it appeared at the beginning of the century and disappeared at the end, the last instrument of this family to enjoy great popularity in France. Its delicate sound and range bring it closer to the violin, making it a bridge between French and Italian musical traditions. Although it has disappeared, this instrument leaves behind a rich and refined repertoire, carried by composers such as Michel Corrette (1707-1795) and Louis de Caix d'Hervelois (1677-1759), an emulator of Marin Marais, Charles Dollé (c. 1710-1755) and Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755). As it evolved, the instrument gradually lost strings, going from six to four, thus accentuating its resemblance to the violin and also explaining its disappearance.

The pardessus de viole is also known as the female instrument par excellence of 18th-century France. Unlike the violin, which retained the reputation of a ‘low instrument’ in the 18th century, it belongs to the category of ‘feminine instruments’ such as the lute, the harp or the harpsichord. Furthermore, the marks left on the neck by the violin, added to the bulk of elaborate hairstyles, reinforced the appeal of the viola da gamba for noblewomen. It gradually spread to other social classes of the time and this popular craze also contributed to its disappearance. As it became more democratic, it lost its appeal to the nobility and the intellectual bourgeoisie. The Revolution and the fall of the Ancien Régime confirmed the disappearance of this instrument linked to the aristocratic art of living. Despite its short existence, ‘the overcoat allowed a whole section of society access to music that had been foreign to it until then,’ emphasises Christiane Dubuquoy-Portois (2).

Our pastel is of particular interest because it is one of the few depictions of the pardessus de viole in painting or drawing, like Chardin's Still Life with Musical Instruments (Ill. 1), commissioned by Louis XV in 1764 for the Château de Choisy and now in the Louvre (INV 3200), or the Portrait of a Woman Playing a Viola da Gamba attributed to Jean Baptiste Perronneau (Ill. 2) and the French school Portrait Presumed of Louis de Caix d'Hervelois and Marie-Anne de Caix (Ill. 3) whose locations remain unknown for the moment.

An exceptional object, this Portrait of a Young Woman with a Violet is one of Jean Valade's most beautiful works, a precious historical source on the playing of this instrument that has fallen into disuse, and above all a witness to an era when aesthetics dictated even the choice of sounds.

(1) Neil Jeffares, ‘Valade, Jean’, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, Online version (updated 24 January 2025), p. 1.

(2) Christiane Dubuquoy-Portois, ‘Le pardessus de viole au XVIIIe siècle: un nouvel instrument de divertissement’ in Florence Gétreau (ed.), Instrumentistes et luthiers parisiens: XVIIe - XIXe siècle, Paris, 1988, pp. 135-148.

We would like to thank Neil Jeffares for confirming the attribution of this pastel.