Portrait of Madame Fréret d’Héricourt
Framed: 41 3/4 x 35 3/8 inches (106.05 x 89.87 cm)
Salon de 1769, Salon du Louvre, Paris, opened August 25, 1769, no. 198, as M.me Freret Dericourt.
Exhibition of Masterpieces Honoring Hazel Barker King, Retiring Curator of the Allen Memorial Art Museum, Allen Memorial Art Museum, Oberlin College, June 1–15, 1952, no. 2, erroneously as by Francois Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady with a Dog.
French Eighteenth Century Painters: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Education Program of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, October 6–November 2, 1954; Wildenstein, New York, November 16–December 11, 1954, no. 7, erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog.
The Century of Mozart, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, January 15–March 4, 1956, no. 29, erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Lady Holding A Dog.
Age of Elegance: The Rococo and its Effect, Baltimore Museum of Art, April 25–June 14, 1959, no. 9.
school exhibit, Corpus Christi Art Foundation, TX, March 3–29 or March 12–25, 1961, no cat.
The Age of Louis XV: French Painting 1715–1774, Toledo Museum of Art, October 26–December 7, 1975; The Art Institute of Chicago, January 10–February 22, 1976; National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, March 21–May 2, 1976, no. 33, as Portrait de Mme Freret-Déricour.
Those Beguiling Women, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, September 27–October 30, 1983, as Portrait of Mme. Freret-Dericour.
Picturing French Style: Three Hundred Years of Art and Fashion, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, AL, September 6, 2002–January 5, 2003; Norton Museum of Art, West Palm Beach, FL, February 4–April 27, 2003, hors cat.
Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (1725–1802): Le Van Dyck de la France, La Bibliothèque-Musée Inguimbertine de Carpentras, France, June 14–September 28, 2025.
Possibly to the presumed sitter, Élisabeth Fréret d’Héricourt (née Gonnet, b. ca. 1730, Lyon) or her husband, Nicolas Louis Fréret d’Héricourt (b. ca. 1732, Herbies/Vispens, Fribourg, Switzerland), Paris and Beauséjour, Beauvais, France, 1769 [1];
Count Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, 2nd Prince of San Donato (1839–1885), Villa San Donato, Polverosa, Italy, by 1880 [2];
Purchased at his sale, Palais de San Donato: Objets d’Art et d’Ameublement, Tableaux, Villa San Donato, Polverosa, March 15, 1880, lot 1439, as by François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait de Femme, by Thomas Agnew and Sons, London, no. 1402, March 15–April 7, 1880 [3];
Purchased from Agnew by Alfred Charles de Rothschild (1842–1918), London and Halton, Buckinghamshire, England, April 7, 1880–at least 1884 [4];
To his cousin, Constance Flower, Lady Battersea (née de Rothschild, 1843–1931), Aston Clinton, Buckinghamshire, by 1918 [5];
Possibly inherited by her first cousin twice removed, Rosemary de Rothschild (1913–2013), 1931 [6];
To Edmund Leopold de Rothschild (1916–2009), London and Exbury Estate, Hampshire, England, until possibly 1942 [7];
With Edward Speelman Ltd., London, on joint account with F. Kleinberger Galleries, New York, no. 1187, as by Francois-Hubert Drouais, Woman with dog on her Lap, December 1950–December 8, 1953 [8];
Purchased from Speelman and Kleinberger by The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1953.
Notes
[1] Madame Fréret d’Héricourt’s maiden name is also variously spelled Gounet or Gonet. For more on the Fréret d’Héricourts, see the curatorial entry by Joseph Baillio, “Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Portrait of Madame Fréret d’Héricourt, 1769,” in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.314.5407.
A man named Nicolas Louis Freret, who had been born in Vispens, diocese of Fribourg in Switzerland, became a naturalized French citizen in 1756. See “FRERET (Nicolas Louis),” Archives nationales, Paris, cote P//2595, https://francearchives.gouv.fr/fr/facomponent/366dc84b6227fb573c26baf3cc39ea1561168541 In 1794, the Fréret d’Héricourts were acquitted by the Revolutionary Tribunal for the charge of burying and hiding various valuable metal objects. At the time, the family lived at rue du Faubourg du Temple in Paris and also owned a house in Beauséjour, Beauvais.
[2] This constituent is also sometimes known as Paul Demidoff. His grandfather Nikolai Nikitich Demidov (1773–1828) was an art collector active in Paris, Russia, and Italy. He began building the Villa San Donato in 1827, but he died the following year before it was completed. His first son and Pavel II’s father, Pavel Nikolaievich Demidov (1798–1840), probably inherited Villa San Donato but seems to have not been interested in art due to ill health. Nikolai’s younger son, Count Anatoly Nikolaievich Demidov (1813–1870), inherited the Villa San Donato next, and a few months after his brother’s death in 1840, he was named the 1st Prince of San Donato (so that his new wife princess Mathilde-Létizia Bonaparte could retain her title). Anatoly was an active art collector in Paris. When he died without legitimate issue, his nephew Count Pavel Pavlovich Demidov, 2nd Prince of San Donato (1839–1885), inherited the Villa San Donato. He may have inherited the painting from any of these relatives. The 2nd Prince spent much of his life between Paris, Vienna, Kiev, and St. Petersburg, and he also collected art. According to Juliette Adam, In Memoriam. Prince Paul Demidoff, Mort le 26 janvier, 1885, trans. H. Guedalla (London, 1885), p. 6, “In 1874, he returned [from Kiev] to Petersburg, then to San Donato, which he continued to enrich with objects of art.” In 1872, he bought a property formerly belonging to the Medici and transformed it into the Villa Pratolino. It seems unlikely that the painting ever hung in one of the buildings on this second property since by 1880 it was hanging in the boudoir of the Villa San Donato.
[3] See National Gallery, London, Thomas Agnew Archive, NGA 27/1/1/6, Picture Stock Book 4, p. 70–71. See also paper label with ink script, partially encapsulated, on stretcher reverse of painting: Purchased for A de Rothschild Esq / by Thos Agnew Sons from the / [S]a[n] Donato Collection March 1880.
[4] The painting may have hung in Halton, Alfred’s mansion in Buckinghamshire, until his death in January 1918. See Rothschild Archive, London, Alfred Charles de Rothschild (1842–1918): will and estate papers, RAL 000/174, Halton, “Schedule of Furniture and General Contents of the Mansion and Outbuildings, Messers. Knight, Frank and Rutley, Auctioneers and Values,” August 1918, p. 127, as Library–Drouais, A three-quarter length portrait of a lady. However, as of 1884, Alfred also owned another Drouais, known then as Portrait of Mademoiselle Duthé (or Dutet); see Charles Davis, A Description of the Works of Art Forming the Collection of Alfred de Rothschild, vol. 1 (London: [Chiswick Press], 1884), nos. 50 and 198. If the Duplessis painting was still in Alfred’s collection at the time of his death, it would have been inherited, along with his estate, by his nephew, Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882–1942). Lionel sold the estate to the War Office in May 1918, but retained ownership of the contents of the mansion.
[5] See small paper label on upper left corner of the stretcher reverse, faint graphite, which appears to read: Lord Barters[z?]e. The first and last Lord Battersea (né Cyril Flower, 1843–1907) received his title to Baron on September 5, 1892. In 1877, he married Constance de Rothschild, who was Alfred de Rothschild’s first cousin. By 1918, the painting hung in the “Blue Drawing Room” at Aston Clinton, which was Lady Battersea’s family home. See Constance Flower Battersea, Thoughts in Verse (Norwich: Goose and Son, 1920), 8. After the death of Lady Battersea’s mother, Louisa, in 1910 and Alfred de Rothschild in 1918 (the last of Lionel Nathan de Rothschild’s sons), Aston Clinton and its contents were inherited by Lady Battersea’s first cousin once removed, N. Charles de Rothschild (1877–1923). Throughout this time, Lady Battersea continued to live there. After Charles’ death in 1923, his executors convinced Lady Battersea to sell Aston Clinton and its contents, although the Duplessis painting does not appear in the sales catalogues.
[6] The painting may have gone with Lady Battersea to another one of her houses after 1923. She leased a London mansion at 10, Connaught Place and owned an estate called The Pleasaunce in Overstrand, Norfolk, England. After Lady Battersea’s death in 1931, these houses were inherited by her first cousin twice removed, Rosemary de Rothschild. See Lucy Cohen, Lady de Rothschild and her daughters, 1821–1931 (London: John Murray, 1937), 285. According to Michael Hall, curator of Exbury House, in an email to Meghan Gray, Curatorial Associate, October 22, 2018, NAMA curatorial files, because Rosemary was only 18 at the time, her father, Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882–1942), took over Rosemary’s interest in the estates. He sold The Pleasaunce in 1936 and 10, Connaught Place, sometime after 1931, but the painting is not listed in either sales catalogue.
[7] In his memoirs, Edmund de Rothschild, A Gilt-Edged Life: Memoir (London: John Murray, 1998), 7–8, Edmund de Rothschild recounts inheriting his great-uncle’s estate and artwork through his father and Alfred de Rothschild’s nephew, Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882–1942), London. It is possible that this painting was among the works he inherited in this manner. Although Edmund inherited his art collection from Lionel, the presence of Lady Battersea and possibly Rosemary de Rothschild in the provenance makes a direct transfer between Lionel and Edmund unlikely. Edmund was forced to sell most of the family’s fine art and furniture in 1942 in order to raise funds for estate duties. Many of the paintings were sold to Thomas Agnew and Sons and to the Finnish dealer Tancred Borenius (1885–1948), who was also a part-time advisor to Sotheby’s. This painting may have been one of them.
A handwritten note in the NAMA curatorial files amends the provenance listed in the accessioning paperwork, crossing out the name Edmund and replacing it with Edouard. Alfred’s second cousin, Edouard Alphonse de Rothschild (1868–1949) was a banker and art collector who lived in Paris. The German National Socialist (Nazi) regime confiscated most of his art collection in late 1941. This version of the provenance, in which Edmund is replaced with Edouard, was published in the 1975 exhibition catalogue titled The Age of Louis XV. French Painting, 1715–1774. It is not clear who made this amendment, and though it appears very likely to have been an error, research is being conducted in the appropriate archives to verify the painting was in Edmund’s possession and that there are no known claims to the painting.
[8] See The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, F. Kleinberger Galleries (New York, N.Y.), Stock cards, 1897–1973, and clipping file.
Explication des Peintures, Sculptures, et Gravures, de Messieurs de l’Académie Royale, Dont l’exposition a été ordonnée, suivant l’intention de Sa Majesté, par M. le Marquis de Marigny, Conseiller du Roi en ses Conseils, Commandeur de ses Ordres, Lieutenant Général des Provinces de Beauce et Orléanois, Directeur et Ordonnateur général des Bâtimens Du Roi, Jardins, Arts, Académies et Manufactures Royales; Gouverneur des villes de Blois, Suèvres et Menars, et Capitaine Gouverneur du Château de Blois, exh. cat. (Paris: Herissant Pere, 1769), 31, as M.me Freret Dericourt.
Élie-Catherine Fréron, “Lettre XIII. Exposition des Peintures, Sculptures et Gravûres de Messieurs de l’Académie Royale,” L’Année Littéraire 5 (1769): 313, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Collection Deloynes, vol. 9, no. 128, p. 311.
Lettre sur L’Exposition Des Ouvrages De Peinture et de Sculpture au Sallon [sic] du Louvre 1769 (Paris, 1769), Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, Collection Deloynes, vol. 49, no. 120, p. 43.
“Lettre II. Sur les Peintures, Sculptures, et Gravures de Messieurs de l’Académie Royale, exposée au Sallon [sic] du Louvre, le 25 Août 1769,” Mémoires Secrets pour Servir à l’Histoire de la République des Lettres en France, Depuis MDCCLXII jusqu’à nos jours; ou Journal d’un Observateur (London: John Adamson, 1780), 13:46.
“Catalogue Général des Ouvrages Exposés au Salon du Louvre, Depous 1699 jusqu’en 1789: Première Partie; Tableaux et Dessins,” Le Cabinet de l’amateur et de l’antiquaire (Paris: Librairie Firmin-Didot frères, fils et cie, 1845), 4:182, as Madame Freret Dericour.
Charles Pillet, Palais de San Donato: Catalogue des Objets d’Art et d’Ameublement Tableaux (Paris: Pillet et Dumoulin, 1880), 332–33, erroneously as by François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait de femme.
“La Vente de San-Donato,” Le Gaulois (March 16, 1880): 1, erroneously as by Drouais, Portrait de la Femme au Chien.
“Échos de Partout,” La Liberté (March 17, 1880): 3, erroneously as by Drouais, Portrait de la Femme au Chien.
[untitled article], L’Entr’acte (March 17, 1880): 3, erroneously as by Drouais, La Femme au Chien.
“Informations,” Le XIXe Siècle (March 17, 1880): 2, erroneously as by Drouais, Portrait de la Femme au Chien.
“Informations et Faits,” Journal Officiel de la République Française 2, no. 77 (March 18, 1880): 3180, erroneously as by Drouais, La Femme au Chien.
“Échos du Jour,” Le Peuple français (March 18, 1880): 2, erroneously as by Drouais, La Femme au Chien.
“The San Donato Sale,” Times (London) (March 18, 1880): 11, erroneously as by F. H. Drouais, Portrait of a Lady, Seated, with a Spaniel on her Knee.
“Article 13: Vente San Donato commencée le 15 mars 1880,” Journal des Amateurs d’Objets d’Art et de Curiosité 24 (May–June 1880): 59, erroneously as by Drouais, Portrait de la Femme au Chien.
“L’Art, Tome xxi [review],” The Nation 31, no. 796 (September 30, 1880): 244.
Paul Leroi, “Le Palais de San Donato et Ses Collection: XV (Suite),” L’Art: Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée 6, no. 20 (1880): 310.
L’Art: Revue Hebdomadaire Illustrée 6, no. 21 (1880): (repro.), erroneously as by F. H. Drouais, Portrait.
Victor Champier, L’Année Artistique: Beaux-Arts en France et à l’Étranger (Paris: A. Quantin, 1881), 3:365, erroneously by Drouais, La Femme au Chien.
Charles Davis, A Description of the Works of Art Forming the Collection of Alfred de Rothschild, vol. 1 (London: [Chiswick Press], 1884), unpaginated, erroneously as by Drouais, A Portrait of a Lady.
F. G. Stephens, “Mr. Alfred de Rothschild’s Collection,” Art Journal (July 1885): 218.
Jules Guiffrey, “Table des Portraits Exposés aux Salons du Dix-Huitième Siècle jusqu’en 1800,” Nouvelles Archives de l’Art Français, 3rd ser. (Paris: Charavay Frères, 1889), 5:17.
Emile Dacier, Catalogues de Ventes et Livrets de Salons Illustrés par Gabriel de Saint-Aubin (1909; repr. Jacques Laget, Librairie des Arts et Métiers-Éditions, 1993), 2:71, 83, as Mme Freret-Dericour.
Jules Belleudy, J.-S. Duplessis: Peintre du Roi, 1725–1802 (Chartres: Imprimerie Durand, 1913), 26, 305, 322–23, as Mme Freret-Dericourt.
Constance Flower Battersea, Thoughts in Verse (Norwich: Goose and Son, 1920), 8, erroneously as A Portrait by Drouais.
“Exhibition of Masterpieces Honoring Hazel Barker King, Retiring Curator of the Allen Memorial Art Museum,” Supplement, exh. cat., Bulletin (Allen Memorial Art Museum) 9, (June 1952): 130–31, (repro.), erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady with a Dog.
French Eighteenth Century Painters: Loan Exhibition for the Benefit of the Education Program of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, exh. cat. (New York: Wildenstein, 1954), unpaginated, erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog.
“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October–December 1953,” Art Quarterly 17, no. 2 (Summer 1954): 184, 186–87, (repro.), erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog.
“Chardin’s Brilliant Contemporaries,” Art News 53, no. 6 (October 1954): 40, (repro.), erroneously as by Drouais.
“The Century of Mozart: January 15 through March 4, 1956,” Bulletin (The Nelson Gallery and Atkins Museum) 1, no. 1 (January 1956): 27, erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Lady Holding a Dog.
Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 102, 110, (repro.), erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog.
Age of Elegance: The Rococo and Its Effect, exh. cat. (Baltimore: Baltimore Museum of Art, 1959), 29, as Portrait of a Lady Holding a Dog.
“Treasures of Kansas City,” Connoisseur 145, no. 584 (April 1960): 123, erroneously as by F. H. Drouais.
Jean Seznec, ed., Diderot Salons (Oxford: Clarendon, 1967), 4:49, as Mme Freret Dericour.
Ralph T. Coe, “The Baroque and Rococo in France and Italy,” Apollo 96, no. 130 (December 1972): 538–39, (repro.) [repr. in Denys Sutton, ed., William Rockhill Nelson Gallery, Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City (London: Apollo Magazine, 1972), 70–71, (repro.)], erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of a lady holding a dog.
Ross E. Taggart and George L. McKenna, eds., Handbook of the Collections in The William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, Kansas City, Missouri, vol. 1, Art of the Occident, 5th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1973), 136, (repro.), erroneously as by François Hubert Drouais, Portrait of A Lady Holding a Dog.
Pierre Rosenberg, The Age of Louis XV: French Painting 1710–1774, exh. cat. (Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art, 1975), 38, (repro.), as Portrait of Mme Freret-Déricour.
Else Marie Bukdahl, Diderot, Critique d’Art, trans. Jean-Paul Faucher (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde et Bagger, 1980), 1:154, (repro.).
“Those Beguiling Women,” Calendar of Events (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (September 1983): 3–4, (repro.), as Portrait of Mme. Freret-Dericour.
Santina M. Levey, Lace: A History (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 1983), (repro.), as Portrait of Madame Freret-Déricour Holding a Dog.
Ellen R. Goheen, The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art (New York: Harry N. Abrams, 1988), 71, 73–74, (repro.), as Portrait of Mme Freret Dericour.
Roger Ward and Patricia J. Fidler, eds., The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art: A Handbook of the Collection (New York: Hudson Hills Press, in association with Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 1993), 193, (repro.), as Portrait of Mme Freret Déricour.
Denis Diderot, Héros et martyrs, ed. Else Marie Bukdahl et al. (Paris: Hermann, 1995), 4:99n283, as Mme Fréret Dericour.
Alan Wintermute and Donald Garstang, The French Portrait, 1550–1850, exh. cat. (New York: Colnaghi, 1996), 56, (repro.), as Madame Freret-Déricour.
Jane Turner, ed., The Dictionary of Art (New York: Grove’s Dictionaries, 1998), 9:399.
Pierre Sanchez and Xavier Seydoux, Les Estampes de “l’Art” (1875–1907) (Paris: l’Echelle de Jacob, 1999), 87.
Images (Norton Museum of Art) 9, no. 3 (January–February 2003): (repro.), as Mme Freret Déricour.
Jean-Paul Chabaud, Joseph-Siffred Duplessis, 1725–1802: biographie (Mazan: Etudes Comtadines, 2003), 28, 124, (repro.).
Pierre Sanchez, Dictionnaire des Artistes Exposant dans les Salons des XVII et XVIIIème Siècles à Paris et en Province, 1673–1800 (Dijon: L’Echelle de Jacob, 2004), 2:607, as Mme Freret Dericour.
“Art Tasting with Julián,” Member Magazine (The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art) (Fall 2010): 11, (repro.), as Portrait of Madame Freret Déricour.
Lesley Ellis Miller, Selling Silks: A Merchant’s Sample Book 1764 (London: Victoria and Albert Museum, 2014), 16, as Portrait of Madame Freret Déricour.
Joanna M. Gohmann, “The Four-Legged Sitter: A Note on the Significance of the Dog in Jean-Marc Nattier’s La Marquise d’Argenson,” Journal of the Walters Art Museum 73 (2018): 97–98, (repro.), https://thewalters.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/jwam_73_04_24_2018.pdf, as Madame Freret Déricour.
Hannah Williams, “Dog,” in Artists’ Things: Rediscovering Lost Property from Eighteenth-Century France, ed. Katie Scott and Hannah Williams (Los Angeles: Getty Research Institute, 2024), 106–07, (repro.), as Madame Fréret d’Héricourt and Her Dog, https://www.getty.edu/publications/artists-things/things/dog/.
Joseph Baillio, “Joseph Siffred Duplessis, Portrait of Madame Fréret d’Héricourt, 1768–69,” catalogue entry in French Paintings and Pastels, 1600–1945: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City: The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2025), https://doi.org/10.37764/78973.5.314.5407.
Xavier Salmon, Joseph-Siffred Duplessis (1725-1802): Le Van Dyck de la France, exh. cat. (Paris: Editions Lienart, forthcoming 2025).
