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The mystery of the flutist’s portrait
by Yulia Berry
In May 2022, at the sale of old paintings, one lot exceeded all expectations and became the super star of the auction. A portrait of a cheerful flutist, valued at 30,000 euros, was bought by a French buyer for 300,380 euros.
The title of the lot was “Portrait of a flutist in his study”, and it is obvious that the beautiful painting was painted by the hand of a great artist. Known as the work of the French School from c. 1720-1730, the portrait still has its secrets.
Who is the artist?
Two things remain unknown about this very energetic painting, starting with the identity of the artist. Old and modern experts suggest Louis Tocqué or Pierre Subleyras, but it may have been painted by André Bouys .
Let’s take a look at all candidates.
Louis Tocqué (1696 – 1772)
Louis Tocqué was a French artist, who specialized in portrait painting. Tocqué was born in Paris, studied with Nattier, one of whose daughters he married, and had a successful career in Paris as a portraitist. He was influenced by Rigaud and Largilliere.
His first major work was a portrait painting of Louis XV of France commissioned by his great-grandfather Louis XIV, King of France. In 1740 he painted a portrait of Maria Leshchinskaya, Queen of France. From 1737 to 1759, more than fifty portraits he painted were regularly exhibited at the Salon, the official art exhibition of the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris. In 1745, he painted a portrait of the Spanish Infanta Maria Teresa Rafaela a year before her death. In 1757, he left for the Russian Empire, where he stayed for two years at the invitation of Elizabeth Petrovna, the Russian Empress, to create her ceremonial portrait. This portrait is today part of the permanent collection of the Hermitage in St. Petersburg in Russia. In the 1760s he traveled around Denmark, painting portraits of the Danish royal family and teaching at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen.
Below are some examples of his works:
Pierre Hubert Subleyras (1699-1749)
French artist who settled permanently in Rome in 1728 after receiving the Prix de Rome a year earlier. He painted a wide variety of subjects, including portraits and still lifes, but he is most appreciated for his religious paintings, which are much more serious in spirit than most French works of the Rococo period. His most famous work is the Saint Basil Mass, written for Saint Peter but now in Santa Maria degli Angeli. This huge painting was highly acclaimed when presented in 1748, but Subleyras died before he could continue his success.
Below are some examples of his works:
André Bouys (1656-1740)
Bouys was born in Hyères in southern France. A student of François de Troy, he became a member of the Academy. Although Bouys painted genre paintings and still lifes, his main occupation was the portrait artist. Among his models were several musicians.
Below are some examples of his works:
Let’s vote! Who do you think is the author of this portrait?
Who is the flutist?
The model is also anonymous, but the rich costume, golden braids and competent surroundings betray in him a famous musician or a person of position.
While doing more research, I came across several etchings similar to this portrait, possibly by André Bouy (1656–1740), indicating that the flutist in the painting is possibly the flutist and composer Michel de la Barre (c. 1675– 1745). However, the original painting has never been seen online until now, with the exception of some images of engravings copied from the original portrait, such as the one below:
Who is Michel de la Barre?
He was a French composer and renowned flutist, noted for being the first person to publish music for flute solo – his first book of solo suites for transverse flute and basso continuo (Paris, 1702) was the earliest book ever published for solo works for flutes.
His suites for two unaccompanied flutes (from 1709, the first of their kind in France), flute solos and trio sonatas established the style of the French flute and contributed to the popularity of the instrument. Among his other works were the ballet “Triumph of the Arts” (Paris, May 16, 1700), the comedy-ballet “The Crown” (Paris, May 26, 1705) and songs.
He played at the Royal Academy of Music, the Musettes and Aubois de Poitou and at the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV.
Let’s listen to his music:
Michel de la Barre also appears on the famous painting by André Bouys, c.1710:
The man on the right is probably Michel de La Barre, as the sheet music is an exact copy of his work published in 1707. He is shown standing, wearing a black wig and brown suit with silver trim. He turns the pages of his Troisième livre des trio…mélez de sonates pour la flute traversière (Third book of the trio… mixed with transverse flute sonatas).
The sheet music presented here includes the first trio sonatas written for flute and bass to be published in France.
This painting belongs to the National Gallery in London. The Musée des Beaux-Arts, Dijon has a slightly different, and possibly slightly later, smaller version of this portrait. There is another smaller version, but its current location is unknown.
We also know of another portrait of Michel de la Barre by Hyacinthe Rigaud.
Hyacinthe Rigaud (1659-1743)
Jacine Rigaud-Ros y Serra (1659–1743), known in French as Hyacinthe Rigaud, was a Catalan-French Baroque painter best known for his portraits of Louis XIV and other members of the French nobility.
Let’s vote!
So we have 3 supposed portraits of Michel de la Barre, one of them is the painting in question in this article:
Take a poll to share your opinion! Do you agree that the flutist on all three portraits is the same person, Michel de la Barre?
What else do we know about this incredible painting in question?
The painting passed through the Château de Bussy-Rabutin in 1854 and the Galerie Georges Petit in Paris in 1924. And now appreared in the auction of 2022 to become a superstar!
Bouys had exhibited a portrait of La Barre at the 1699 Salon, which is lost now. Could this painting from the auction of 2022 to be the one?
The cheerful flutist has not yet revealed his secrets.
Yulia Berry
www.yuliavberry.com
Yulia Berry is founder of Web Flute Academy, The Babel Flute, The Babel Flute Courses and New England Flute Institute, creator and developer of the popular “All about Flute” Mobile app and the First Global Game for Flutists, highly experienced flutist and mentor teaching at all levels, with a Doctor of Music Arts degree focused in Flute Performance, Pedagogy and Music Education from the Saint Petersburg State Conservatory named after N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov (Russia).
She has performed as a soloist and chamber musician in prestigious venues around the world, and has been praised for her virtuosity, musicality, and expressive playing.
Yulia Berry is known for her expertise in flute pedagogy, innovative and effective teaching methods, which emphasize technique, musicality, and artistry, and her dedication to helping students achieve their full potential as flutists.
She wrote many articles on the connection of the flute with art and the role of the flute in the arts and cultures of different eras and cultures.
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С большим интересом читала эту статью.Интересно узнавать все новые какие то факты ,особенно когда есть связь между музыкой и живописью. Поздравляю Юля !!!
Спасибо, Ануш! Все виды искусства взаимосвязаны! Я очень люблю исследовать эти связи и обогащать свой культурный багаж!
This is a very bizarre portrait which has been discussed a number of times in the historical flute community. It almost looks like a caricature, in fact when I first saw the engraved version I thought it was someones work in photoshop. The scale of his head vs everything else in the painting is just not right. His head is giant and his hands and the flute are in a distinctly different scale. Very strange. I doesn’t look to me like the work of any of the artist mentioned. Amazing but very odd!
I disagree that the portrait is bizarre.
I find it fascinating, beautiful and very well done. The facial expression is so alive, it looks almost like a photo – just take off the wig and see a modern man…
The proportion of the head and hands could be deceiving because of the huge wig.
I had never seen the original portrait until June 2022 and was quite shaken when I saw it, because the copies that I saw were not as great.
The portrait is a real art and has an incredibly powerful energy. If I had 300K+, I would get it without any hesitation ?
Спасибо огромное за статью! С огромным интересом читала и узнала много для себя интересного! Это огромная работа и поиск всех фактов. Будем надеяться, что когда-то узнаем тайну написания и создания,а также кто изображён.
Большое спасибо, дорогая София! Если поступит новая информация, я обязательно помещу её здесь!
The painting by Hyacinthe Rigaud should be entitled “Portrait of an Unknown Man”. It is (in the opinion of this writer) certainly not de La Barre. The painting of “La Barre and other Musicians” reproduced above is not the original by Andre Bouys at the National Gallery in London, but a copy by another hand (compare the two). The standing man holding the page of a music book is assumed to be de La Barre. The page is the first page of de La Barre’s Premiere Sonate en trio in G major, from his Livre III published in 1707. A truly majestic piece that de La Barre must have been proud of; if the last thirty or so seconds of this sonata don’t make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up, you should seek medical aid ! I am familiar with the engraving, in reproduction, but have not, until now, seen the painting. The man in the engraving bears a quite unmistakable resemblance to the standing man in the painting by Bouys – and the two copies derived therefrom. Note the mole on de La Barre’s right cheek. The same mole can be distinguished in the engraving of a flutist which appears as the frontispiece of Jacques Hotteterre’s Principes de La Flute Traversiere published in 1708. The resemblance of the flutist in the frontispiece of Hotteterre’s book to the standing man in “La Barre and other Musicians” has been remarked by scholars. The man in the painting by Rigaud does not have this distinctive mole and, more importantly, simply does not bear a resemblance to the standing flutist in the painting by Bouys, its copies, or the the portrait and related engraving reproduced above.
I agree with Michael Lynn that this image is odd. In addition to its generally caricature-like quality I find several things about the painting and the engravings to be problematic. The twisted, tense posture of the man in the painting would counter-productive to good technique, and would be likely to cause real physical problems over time. It does not seem likely that a leading player would find such posture anything but an impediment to playing well. This guy looks like he’s just some dude posing with a flute – at least his hands are in the right position and his left hand is pronated.
The style of the flute in this portrait, with the large ivory turning covering the join between the head joint and the one-piece body of the flute, is typical of French flutes as they were made up until about 1720: the style of the end cap in the image, however, is typical of flutes that German makers built after 1750. The flute was developing rapidly in the early eighteenth century: a thirty-year (or more) stylistic gap is significant. The earlier “salt shaker” style of cap is held in place by pressing it onto a tenon that projects from the end of the head joint and inserts into a socket in the cap; the much smaller, thinner, later style of cap has a tenon (like a plug) that slips into the bore of the head joint. In practice putting the later style cap on the earlier style flute would be obviously, visibly wrong: there would be a smaller-diameter tenon an inch or more long visible between the main portion of the head joint and the mismatched end cap. This in itself seems like an obvious red flag. (I’ll be glad to provide you with a photo showing how this ungainly mashup would actually look.) Art fakers frequently get tripped up on anachronisms, and this seems very likely to be one of those cases.
The (penciled?) note on the engraving is strange as well. What does François Couperin, who was a harpsichordist and organist, but not a flutist, have to do with anything in this context? It may have been tempting to think that his name would somehow be “useful” as he is far better-known today than Michel de la Barre.
The fact that there “was” a portrait in the eighteenth century, and that there “is” this portrait, really tells us nothing useful. Liking the picture and wanting it to be what we imagine it to be simply does not make it so.
(I play eighteenth century-style flutes professionally, made copies of them for many years, and have studied many surviving examples in museums and private collections.)