Portrait in silk - Catherine the Great by Philippe Lasalle

Philippe Lasalle, Portrait of Catherine II of Russia, c.1771
103 cm x 73 cm
Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg

 The verse embroidered along the bottom reads:

"DU NIL AU BOSPHORE. L'OTTOMAN FREMIT. SON PEUPLE L'ADORE. LA TERRE APPLAUDIT" (From the Nile to the Bosphorus the Ottoman trembles: Her people adore her, the world applauds.)

This portrait in silk of Catherine the Great, dating from 1771 and now in the Hermitage, represents a virtuoso technical feat: it is neither an embroidery nor a painting but an image actually woven into the fabric.(The grisaille bust is, I think, a separate piece of silk stitched onto the gold background.)  As the "LASALLE FECIT" proudly proclaims, it is the work of the celebrated Lyon designer Philippe Lasalle, and it was sent to St Petersburg by none other than Voltaire, who is the author of the obsequious verses (commemorating Catherine's recent victories over the Turks).

In May 1771 the Princess Dashkova, visiting Ferney as part of an extensive European tour, had admired a portrait in Voltaire's own possession. On 15th May Voltaire wrote to inform Catherine that he had arranged for her to receive a copy:  "Madame, I must tell you immediately that I have had the honour of receiving Princess Dashkova in my hermitage. As soon as she had entered the salon, she recognised your portrait in mezzo-tinto, made with a shuttle on satin, surrounded by a garland of flowers.  Your Imperial Majesty should have received one from Sieur Lasalle; it is a masterpiece of the arts that are practised at Lyon......"

Metropolitan Museum

101.6cm  x 74.9cm

(The portrait in the Met. is not on display and the 
website only has this old black & white photo.)

The portrait had evidently become one of the sights of Voltaire's house. The Duchess of Northumberland described it clearly in 1772, although she mistook it for an embroidery.  It can also probably be identified with the otherwise unknown "life-size portrait of the Empress Catherine II embroidered in petit point by herself" described by Voltaire's secretary Wagnière. In 1967, when Edith Standen published a study in the Metropolitan Museum Bulletin, the original portrait from Ferney was still extant and in the possession of  Mme Pierre Lambert David, whose family owned the château.   According to the Dictionary of pastellists it is now in the collection at Ferney, though I haven't been able to corroborate this.

Other examples exist in the Metropolitan Museum (acquired in 1941 from the collection of Mrs. Henry Walters) and in the Musée des Tissus in Lyon, which apparently also possesses (or possessed) Lasalle's original design.  In 2012 the museum displayed the silk as part of an exhibition of woven portraits entitled La Fabrique des grands hommes which also included a Louis XV by Lasalle.  (You can find Louis on their website, but not, as far as I can tell, the Catherine.)  Another copy, in the Schossmuseum Berlin, was destroyed during the Second World War.

Lasalle fecit, Lyons le 3 May 1771

The exact circumstances surrounding the production of the portrait is not really known but the general consensus is that the initiative was probably Lasalle's own.  By this time he was already famous as the acknowledged premier designer of Lyon and, although in the early 1770s he began his association with the firm of Pernon which was responsible for many of his later prestigious commissions, he still maintained a workshop of his own. Woven portraits were quite a fashion, though not in silk, the most conspicuous example being the Gobelins tapestry of Louis XV exhibited at the Salon of 1763.  According to one old biographical dictionary, Lasalle's first creations were portraits of Louis XV and the comte de Provence, which he offered to the future comtesse de Provence, Princess Marie-Josephine-Louise of Savoy  when she passed through the city in May 1771 on her way to be married. (According to Princess Dashkova the manufacturers of Lyon were vying with each other to produce the most beautiful specimens of their art, as offerings to the Princess of Piedmont and her train. The portrait of Louis in Lyon is explicitly dated, "Lasalle fecit, Lyons le 3 May 1771".) In the following year Lasalle created a companion portrait of the comtesse of Provence  which he had the honour of presenting to her personally at Versailles and for which he was "well-rewarded".  He then sent off portraits of the comte and comtesse to Turin as well as executing others of the King of Sardinia and Princess Marie-Thérèse of Savoy, future  wife of the comte d'Artois. [See Biographie des hommes célèbres du Département de l'Ain (1835) Google e-book]

La Salle,  Comte and Comtesse de Provence c.1771

Examples from the  

Smithsonian's Cooper-Hewitt,  National Design Museum.

Why, though, the Catherine? Again, it seems likely that Lasalle, who was the associate of such Enlightened ministers as Turgot and the younger Trudaine, was the instigator of the portrait.  According to Edith Standen, the copy at Ferney was embroidered, "Presented to Monsieur de Voltaire, by the author". There is also a letter dated March 24 1771 in which Voltaire sends his verses to M. Tabareau, director-general of the post office at Lyon: "Here, Sir, is the shortest thing I have been able to compose for your protegé; and in such cases the shortest is always the best." The letter is endorsed, presumably by the recipient: "Verses intended to be placed at the foot of a portrait of the empress of Russia made at Lyons on the loom by M. Lasalle, manufacturer ["par les soins de m. Lasalle fabriquans"]."  No doubt Lasalle also had his eye on the lucrative Russian market and indeed, Catherine the Great subsequently became an important patron.


The original on which Lasalle based his bust is not certain;  this portrait by Fyodor Rokotov dating from 1769,  features similar hair decorations.  

Edith Standen suggests a print by Louis Bonnet after an original by Jean-Louis de Veilly (from the coronation in 1763), but I haven't been able to trace this.




References

"In memory of Philippe Lasalle"

Lyon silk portrait of 1842

Metropolitan museum

Metropolitan Museum: 
http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/198713

John Goldsmith Phillips, "A silk portrait of Catherine the Great",The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 36(7) 1941, 1941), p. 151-3
http://www.metmuseum.org/pubs/bulletins/
1/pdf/3256097.pdf.bannered.pdf

Edith A Standen, "The mistress and the widow" The  Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, 25(5), 1967 p.185-96.
http://www.metmuseum.org/research/metpublications/
The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art_Bulletin_v_25_
no_5_January_1967

Musée des Tissus, Lyon
Portrait of Louis XV
http://www.musee-des-tissus.com/en/02_02_set.htmlExhibition of silk portraits held in Lyon in 2012
http://loeilduvillage.wordpress.com/2012/05/11/la-fabrique-des-grands-hommes-au-musee-des-tissus/

Cooper-Hewitt,  National Design Museum
Portraits of the comte and comtesse de Provence
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18349469/
https://collection.cooperhewitt.org/objects/18349471/

See also:
Philippe Lasalle in Dictionary of pastellists
http://www.pastellists.com/Articles/LASALLE.pdf

Lasalle on "A textile-lover's diary" [blog]
http://belovedlinens.net/textdesign/philippe-de-lasalle.php

Notice from the Metropolitan Museum on Lasalle's "Partridges"
http://www.metmuseum.org/Collections/search-the-collections/227482

Making silk - grand designs

English aficionados of French silk are eagerly awaiting the opening of the new European galleries at the V & A scheduled for later on this year.  In the meantime, there are loads of sites on the internet relating to European and US collections.  Since it is much better than anything I could write, I am reproducing here a summary of design trends by silk textile expert Elizabeth St-George, written to accompany an exhibition at Kent State University in 2009. The pictures of the exhibits are no longer available on the website, so I have included a few alternative examples:


In Bloom: Patterned Silk Design Innovations in Eighteenth Century France

Light blue silk fragment featuring birds,
 squirrels, bouquets with animated 
sun disks in a scatter plan executed in
 metallic thread brocading
 and overlapping a second damask floral
pattern. French, early 18thcentury
http://www.sarajo.com/ 

"The eighteenth century was of one of the most spectacular periods of silk production in France. Due to regulations initiated to improve the quality of cloth produced during the reign of Louis XIV (1643-1715), silk manufacturing centres such as Lyon were able to capitalize on advancements in weaving technology to create luxurious textiles that were vital to the French economy."

"Early eighteenth century silk design is marked by the evolution of textile motifs towards greater naturalism. While floral ornamentation had consistently appeared in Medieval and Renaissance silk decoration, these forms were heavily stylized. Semi-naturalistic flowers begin to appear about 1700, after which a tendency towards more naturalistic forms accelerated until the middle of the century. The beginning of the eighteenth century is also noted for the production of "Bizarre silk named for the asymmetrical arrangement of exotic motifs and odd color combinations. The resulting informality of "Bizarre Silk" patterns greatly complemented the  increasing naturalism in design."

French brocaded silk,c.1735,
Design attributed to Jean Revel.
Metropolitan Museum

During the 1730s, an entirely new style developed marking a dramatic shift in French silk design. Silks of the 1730s are characterized by large and completely naturalistic fruits and flowers often depicted in relief.

This new style can be linked to the beginning of the career of Jean Revel (1684-1751) one of the most renowned and technically sophisticated Lyonnais silk designers. Revel and other contemporary silk designers also focused considerable attention on how textile motifs were rendered in thread. Instead of depicting flat, single coloured motifs, designers of the 1730s conceived motifs more three-dimensional in appearance through shading or gently blending contrasting shades of colour.

"Having developed naturalism to its fullest extent in the 1730s, silk designs of the 1740s and early 1750s returned to a more stylized manner of depicting forms, a trend that continued through the end of the century. The scale of fruits and flowers also diminished and silk designers played with a lighter composition by organizing meanders of flowers, ribbon, lace or fur patterns across the fabric. While meanders of the 1740s tend to flow more freely through the space of the fabric, meanders of the early 1750s are more static in nature. The light hearted charm and vigour that develops in silk designs during the 1740s is characteristic of mid-eighteenth century Rococo silk production".

Fragment of silk lampas, French c.1760-65
Philadelphia Museum of Art,
 illustrating fur meanders.

"Although the designs are not as stiff as their predecessors, silks of the late 1750s and the 1760s are designed with a similar formula of meanders and smaller, stylized motifs. Meanders of this period are commonly arranged parallel to one another creating an asymmetry across the vertical axis of the fabric. This contrasts greatly with the rigid vertical symmetry employed in silk designs of the 1740s and early 1750s". 

"The 1750s also marks the beginning of the career of Phillip Lasalle (1723-1804), another extremely successful Lyonnais silk designer who is credited with being the first to utilize the fur patterns that were extremely popular in the late 1750s and 1760s".

"Owing significantly to the rediscovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum in 1748, neo-classical themes became increasing influential in textile design at the end of the eighteenth century. While rsmall, stylized flowers emained, the meanders that were popular in earlier decades weregradually replaced by straight lines beginning in the 1760s. During the late 1760s meanders scattered with floral motif curled above or between rows of stripes. By the middle of the 1770s, the floral motifs that were once contained within meanders were now dispersed across or within stripes creating a stiffer composition  that contrasts greatly with the airy designs that were popular earlier in the century".

Elizabeth St-George
Guest Curator

Source

Louis XVI striped silk satin robe, (from artfact.com)

Kent State University Museum, "In bloom: patterned silk design innovations in eighteenth-century France" Exhibition March 6, 2008 - February 8, 2009 Guest curator, Elizabeth St.-George.

http://www.kent.edu/museum

/exhibits/exhibitdetail.cfm?customel_data

pageid_2203427=2236375

Other references

Article on the new gallery at the V & A, The Guardian 15th January 2014.

http://www.theguardian.com/artand
design/2014/jan/15/v-and-a-baroque-rococo-galleries-transformed

."The silk industry of Lyon" in A textile lover's diary [reference website]
http://belovedlinens.net/fabrics/Lyon-silk1.html

Metropolitan Museum - Textile production in Europe: silk, 1600–1800
http://www.metmuseum.org
/toah/hd/txt_s/hd_txt_s.htm

Philadelphia Museum of Art: "The Bizarre and the beautiful: silks of the eighteenth century" Exhibition July 1, 2006 - November 11, 2007, Curator Dilys Blum 

http://www.philamuseum.org/exhibitions/240.html?page=1

 Lesley Ellis Miller "A portrait of the 'Raphael of silk design'"  V&A Online Journal, Issue No. 4  (2012). [on Jean Revel]
http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/journals/research-journal/issue-no.-4-summer-2012/a-portrait-of-the-raphael-of-silk-design