The Dauphin Louis-Charles: Drawings and painted portraits

There are literally hundreds of portraits of the little lost Dauphin Louis-Charles, Louis XVII, most of them of dubious authenticity. The most comprehensive catalogue remains François Laurentie's Louis XVII of 1913, a two volume limited edition work, aimed mainly at collectors and concentrating on pictures in private hands.  Dr. Richard Taws has remarked that Laurentie's work was a ""particularly sustained attempt to isolate authentic images in a culture in which, more than a century after his death, false portraits of Louis XVII circulate in the streets"(Taws, 2016, p.85).  This book is not available on the internet, but the plates and rubric are reproduced on the Musée Louis XVII website. My aim is only to pick out a few of the more interesting portraits and drawings mentioned there, or in Laurentie's summary article, L'iconographie de Louis XVII which is on Gallica. Some of these works have appeared on the art market recently, after the last update on the Musée Louis XVII site in 2000.

Laurentie's analysis has to be treated with a certain amount of caution.  The grandson of the Restoration legitimist journalist Pierre-Sébastien Laurentie, one of his aims was to refute false claimants to the identity of Louis XVII. This made him inclined to go further than the evidence really allowed in documenting details of Louis-Charles's physical appearance and his progressive decline into ill-health, "to fix the principal iconographic types of this blond child, with big blue eyes, a little large-headed, an exaggerated ear, and prone, of course, finally, to scrofulous rickets". (Taws, p.85).  In reality the conclusions of this exercise are often extremely uncertain.



Early images

In the famous portrait of Marie-Antoinette and her children by Elisabeth Vignée-Lebrun at Versailles (1987) the infant Louis-Charles, aged two, is shown on his mother's knee, a doll with fair hair, big blue eyes and a rosy complexion. The picture is informative primarily for its details of the royal children's clothing.  The five-year old dauphin Louis-Joseph (born on 22nd October 1781) wears an costume "à la Marlborough" - short jacket, round open collar and long trousers.  Louis-Charles would have abandoned his dresses for a similar outfit at at about the time of his brother's death in 1789.  Laurentie identifies a first iconographic type  which shows him dressed in this way, with short jacket, trousers and with long hair.  (See L'Iconographie de Louis XVII, p.16-8.)

Examples include:

• An engraving depicting the famous banquet of the gardes du corps (1st October 1789) in which the royal couple appeared with the child,  then aged four-and-a-half.  Possibly this one:

Detail of a contemporary engraving from Thiers, History of the French Revolution

• A medal by Benjamin Duvivier, struck to commemorate the King's arrival in Paris in October 1789. 
• An anonymous miniature in the Carnavalet - the original or an example of a widespread type - which shows Louis-Charles with a prominent nose and a central parting in his hair.
• The bust by Deseine, dating from August 1790, when Louis-Charles still had a central parting in his hair.

Drawing by Moitte, undated (1790 or 1791)

1Laur26v

Portrait of the Dauphin by A. MOITTE. Drawing in coloured crayons (29cm x 23.5cm)

This portrait is often dated to the period of the Temple, since the eyes have a singular expression of sadness.  But the Dauphin did not have to wait for 1792 to be afraid and cry.  The form of the nose, the flare of the top lip, the chin, the haircut, relate it closely to the bust by Deseine, therefore to 1790.  Moitte's drawings of the child date between 1789 and 1792.  From the Moitte family.  Belonging to M. Henri Lavedan (in 1913)
See: L'iconographie de Louis XVII... (1913)  p.18: A "superb drawing in coloured crayons" by Moitte which belonged to Henri Lavedan and which reveals "a certain swelling of the upper lip" (ie. betraying characteristic Hapsburg features) 

This portrait appeared for auction with Drouot in 2015: [ the sale of the Alcide Beauchesne collection, though this lot was from a different seller]

Drouot,  16th November 2015. Noblesse et Royauté, Lot 159. 
https://www.gazette-drouot.com/lots/5462271

Attributed to Alexandre Moitte (1750-1828). Dated "about 1791".
Pastel on paper, with coloured crayons and white highlights in its original gilded wood frame.  41.5cm x 35.5cm.

"This work was attributed to Alexandre Moitte by François Laurentie in 1913 (L'Iconographie, p.18) when it was in the collection of Henri Lavedan (1859-1940).  Acquired by Lavedan from the family of the artist.  Sold in 1941 to Léon Lacroix, and resold in 1945; thence by inheritance to the present vendors." 

The estimate was €20,000 to €30,000, but the lot remained unsold.



 Moitte, The Dauphin at the Fête de la Fédération (July 1790)

This image by Moitte exists in different versions: a sanguine drawing, a watercolour and various prints.  Laurentie reproduced what looks to be a preliminary sketch. 



1Laur29v
Portrait of the Dauphin by A. MOITTE. Pencil sketch acquired directly from the Moitte family.  Height  6.8 cm, 1790. Belonging to M. Léon Masson (in 1913)
See: L'iconographie,  p.18: This "delicious sketch" by Moitte, shows Louis-Charles en homme, with a confident air and wearing long trousers.






1Laur69 
Portrait of the Dauphin in National Guard uniform by A. Moitte (about 14th July 1792).
Design in sanguine, drawn from life at the Tuileries. The National Guard Uniform is exactly right. It is known that the Prince-Royal wore it on the day of the Second Federation, 14th July 1792...This design was engraved in colour under the Legislative Assembly with the title "Hope of the French people"... Moitte himself later made a lithograph, an example of which exists in the Bibliothèque nationale.  See also I'Iconographie, p.22: the owner is specified as Charles Salomon.

I am baffled why Laurentie did not relate the sketch to the finished work, and also why the dating is so muddled: it is clearly documented that Marie-Antoinette dressed Louis-Charles as a National Guard for the first Fête de la Féderation in 1790.  This would seem the obvious occasion for Moitte to have made his study.

The sanguine portrait was acquired by the Palace of Versailles in 2017, having been previously sold by Swann Auction Galleries, New York, on  April 28, 2016
http://collections.chateauversailles.fr/#6367dfca-f065-46d4-8997-d98d363c2fba

Here is a nice watercolour version:
http://pictify.saatchigallery.com/242021/louis-charles-dauphin-of-france-1790-by-alexandre-moitte:




Portraits from Autumn 1790 to Summer 1792

Laurentie observed that by the Autumn of 1790, when Louis-Charles was just over five-and-a-half, his long hair was trimmed. For several months in 1790-91 it was very short indeed: the popular prints from the time of the flight to Varennes (June 1791) show him with a closely cropped round head. He was now often depicted in a jacket with lapels, sometimes in the national colours with blue with white and red trimming. (See L'Iconographie de Louis XVII, p.18-9.). 

Laurentie wanted also to define a further distinct period, from the Autumn of 1791 to August 1792. As far as prints are concerned a fixed point was provided by the designation "Prince-Royal" which appeared only after Louis XVI's acceptance of the Constitution on 14th September 1791.  According to Laurentie, Louis-Charles now wore his hair longer again and from early 1792, as he approached seven years old, he discarded short jackets in favour of breeches and "ridingotes" (L'Iconographie, p.21-27).  However, I am not sure the dating of the pictures is really secure enough to sustain this degree of specificity.

The defining work from this era is the official portrait by Kucharski, which was possibly begun as early as August 1791, though the earliest extant versions are dated 1792. There is no direct evidence that any other portraits were posed for, although at this time the Dauphin was still visible to observers and the broad characteristics of his physiognomy would presumably have been known.  

There are a number of supposed portraits from these years attributed to major artists, notably Boilly [1Laur51] and Greuze [1Laur52] but these are of doubtful authenticity. The most interesting (?convincing) images from this time show Louis-Charles with his rounded head and short hair:

Portrait  in coloured crayons by Jean-Paul Lucas (1737-1808)

This picture belonged to M. Tausserat-Radel in 1913.  (L'Iconographie, p.21)  

The artist Jean-Paul Lucas (1737-1808), came from a family of artists and sculptors from Toulouse.

The drawing is dated  26th February 1792.  Laurentie described it as "sincere and a little clumsy".  He felt that the profile revealed  Louis-Charles's physiognomy -  a large, ill-placed ear, tall pointed skull and turned up nose.  These features are not apparent in the more idealised images of Greuze and Kucharski, or the miniatures of Dumont.  

There is an entry for this picture on the Musée Louis XVII website under "Fonds Coutin". I assume this is information was collated  by a Cercle Louis XVII member (Mlle Coutin?): not sure if this they had access to the actual drawing.

Drawing in coloured pencils (35cm x 25 cm). A label in pencil, recopied in ink,  on the reverse of the frame, reads: "Portrait of Louis Capet, by Citizen Lucas, in the year 1791, 26th February".  The term "Louis Capet" shows that the label is not contemporary.   We think it ought to read "1792". The child is wearing a "coat" which he did not do before 1791, whereas he is consistently represented in one in 1792.  Jean-Paul Lucas, died in Toulouse in 1808.  He was organiser of the Museum of Toulouse.

This is one of the few images with a definite date, so it seems perverse to contest it  - I don't see why this picture should be later than February 1791 just because of the costume.

Studies by the Louis-Auguste Brun (1758-1815)

1Laur42 and 1Laur45

The Swiss artist Brun was painter of the famous equestrian portrait of Marie-Antoinette. All that is  known for certain about his movements in the Revolution is that he left France to take refuge in Geneva at some time in late 1792. Tradition has it that he contrived to communicate with Marie-Antoinette in the Temple; caught carrying a letter to the émigré princes, he was saved from prosecution by his fellow artist, Jean-Louis Prieur.

The first portrait is from an album belonging to a M. Panchaud (in 1913).

The dauphin is shown as a young "gardener" with a rabbit in his arms. The short hair and the collared jacket suggest a date of summer 1791 (Iconographie, p.19-20).  

See:Joseph Raymond Fournier-Sarlovèze, Louis Auguste Brun : peintre de Marie Antoinette, 1758-1815  (1911), p.126-30.
https://archive.org/details/louisaugustebrun00fouruoft/page/126/mode/2up
This biography reproduces the portrait, together with a portrait of Marie-Thérèse from the same album. There is no further information as to date.  

Brun's pastel, reproduced in colour in
the Dictionary of Pastellists 
http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/Brun.pdf

Drawing, coloured in  pastel, attributed to Brun.

This picture, not otherwise documented, belonged to Laurentie himself (in 1913). There is no date, but Laurentie puts it "towards the end of 1791".


Louis-Charles is depicted in a jacket of national colours.  Larentie quotes Le Notre to the effect that artists no longer flattered princes and that the dauphin's expression already shows constraint
.
Following the historian Georges de Manteyer (1867-1948), Laurentie  made much of the dauphin's "enormous earlobe" (p.21) However, other features are clearly inaccurate, notably the black hair colour.







A painted panel by the Dutch artist Nicolaes Muys (1740 -1808),  signed and dated 1791 

2Laur8

This picture, "newly rediscovered" in 1913, shows Marie-Antoinette and her two children in a garden reminiscent of Versailles.  Despite the element of fantasy, Laurentie was convinced that the work was based on preliminary sketches and notes from life; Louis-Charles is clearly recognisable from his colouring and haircut, and from the style of his clothes; the lily growing next to him is a symbol of royalty.

This work too has been on the market recently.  It was sold by Christie's in London in 2000: the vendors were cautious and identified the subject only as a family group:

Christie's, London, 7th July 2000, Old Master Pictures,  Lot 143.  
https://www.christies.com/lotfinder/Lot/nicolaes-muys-rotterdam-1740-1808-a-group-1849396-details.aspx

Nicolaes Muys (Rotterdam 1740-1808)
A group portrait of a family in an ornamental garden
signed and dated 'N.MUYS F. A: 1791.' (lower right)
oil on panel
34 x 27½ in. (86.4cm  x 69.8 cm.)
In a Louis XVI carved and gilded frame with tied ribbon cresting above laurel leaf and berry swags

The fact that the picture fetched £44,650 against an estimate of £25,000-£35,000 suggests that the purchasers thought that it represented the royal family.

Provenance:   Private collection, France, since the end of the 18th century. Fischhof; sale, Petit Palais, Paris, 14 June 1913, lot 32, as 'Marie Antoinette and her children in the Park at Versailles'.

See:
Catalogue de tableaux anciens des écoles anglaise, flamande, française, hollandaise, italienne..., pastels et miniatures composant la collection de M. Eugène Fischhof 

A note adds that the picture is completely unrecorded; it had been owned by the same family since the Revolution.  The owners preserved the  tradition that Muys used the work as a pretext to approach the royal family concerning arrangements for the flight to Varennes.  The date of the painting fits with this.  Albert Vuaflart, expert on the iconography of Marie-Antoinette,  felt that Muys had known his sitters and based his work on notes or sketches from life. 
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k1249065w/f32.image



Louis-Charles in Autumn 1792

Miniature by Agathe Lemoine (dated 8th September 1792) 

1Laur86

This little image once belonged to Madame de Tourzel,and was in the possession of the duc de Blacas in 1913.

Virtually nothing is known about the artist:
Agathe Jeanne Thérèse Bonvallet (1753-1794), was the wife of the portraitist Jacques-Antoine-Marie Lemoine (1751-1824)  No other work by her seems to be known.

It is hard to say if this image has any documentary value: Laurentie commented that it showed the child's "Austrian" profile (L'Iconographie, p.22).  Louis-Charles is depicted in a long redingote with his hair tied in a ponytail.

An engraving after the work was sold in the Beauchesne sale : 

Lot 165 of Noblesse et Royauté, Drouot, 16 November 2015. Engraving after:
"Miniature of Louis XVII in the Temple.  Painted by Agathe Bon. Lemoine le 8 Sept.1792". 5 cm.
https://www.gazette-drouot.com/lots/5462277



See the comments on the Forum Marie-Antoinette:
https://maria-antonia.forumactif.com/t7002-portrait-de-louis-charles-duc-de-normandie-louis-xvi





References

François Laurentie,  L'iconographie de Louis XVII... (1913).  Monograph version of an article published in Revue de l'art, 1913 - 25 pages
https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k5699139x/f13.item
A full survey, with photographs, was produced as a supplement to Laurentie's 1913 work Louis XVII: d'après des documents inédits.  The relevant text and illustrations are reproduced on the Musée Louis XVII website:
"Fonds Laurentie", Musée Louis XVII.  [website created by Michel Jaboulay]
http://musee.louis.xvii.online.fr/res5.htm

Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists [online]. Various entries
http://www.pastellists.com/

Richard Taws, "The Dauphin and his doubles: visualizing royal imposture after the French Revolution", The Art Bulletin, March 2016, vol.98(1): p.72-100 [on JStor]

Discussions on the "Forum Marie-Antoinette":
Physical attributes of Marie-Antoinette's children, November 2014
https://marie-antoinette.forumactif.org/t1519-le-physique-des-enfants-de-louis-xvi-et-marie-antoinette
Various portraits of Louis-Charles,  in February 2015.
https://maria-antonia.forumactif.com/t7002-portrait-de-louis-charles-duc-de-normandie-louis-xvi