Pierre Remy (1715-97): the Parisian art market in the mid-eighteenth century.

The story of how works of art changed hands in France starts to become clearer from the 1740s on, when printed catalogues for auctions first began to appear. While the majority of Parisian auctions were then run by Gersaint, other names emerged during the following decade, in particular those of Glomy, Basan, Remy and Francois Joullain. The number of such sales increased from the 1770s on, and more often than not they were conducted by Paillet and Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun. Dictionaries of the history of art and a number of recent monographs have familiarised us with these different personalities involved in the sales of works of art and curiosities in the eighteenth century. (1) The case of Pierre Remy, whose dates had not come down to us, is something of an exception. Is this because Remy, unlike Pierre-Francois Basan, Francois Joullain and Le Brun, was neither an engraver nor a publisher of prints? Remy did not write any biographies or treatises, and--unlike Alexandre Paillet--did not enjoy the privilege of being consulted by the Crown concerning the acquisition of works of art. The other difference between him and the main dealers of his day is that, following his death in 1797, there was no sale of his business stock. The combination of these various factors was to contribute towards this major figure in what is now called the art market being forgotten after his death. Nevertheless, Remy does indeed qualify as a major figure by virtue of the number of auctions he conducted, alone or in collaboration with other experts: Frits Lugt lists no fewer than one hundred and thirty between 1755 and 1791. (2) In fact, Remy's work as an expert covers an even longer period, since he is first recorded in 1753, and was still carrying out valuations in 1794. (3) Remy also qualifies through the role he played as an adviser to a number of prominent collectors: from the 1750s to the 1770s he supplied major cabinets of curiosities, both in Paris and abroad.

We will not discuss the role Remy played as an agent--for all that annotations in sale catalogues make it possible to reconstruct that role to a large extent--so much as his origins and the context of his training. Then various dealers and restorers, his collaborators or rivals, whom Remy had occasion to frequent in the course of his professional activities, will be introduced. After analysing how experts were paid on the basis of a few examples, we will see in what respects Remy was a unique connoisseur for his period where painting is concerned. During our research, we were able to rediscover various post mortem inventories, in which expert reports by Pierre Remy appear. These have been collected in an Appendix at the end of this article, along with those that were already known, in the form of a chronological list.

Pierre Remy was the son of the maitre peintre doreur Louis Remy and of Marie-Anne Pietrequin, who were married in 1714. (4) Louis Remy, one of the four jures en charge (directors) of the guild between 1733 and 1735, carried out gilding for a prestigious clientele, including in particular the Duc d'Orleans, the Prince de Poix and the Prince de Soubise. However, these names--and the not inconsiderable debts, amounting to 4600 livres, which Louis Remy had owing to him on his death in 1737--are in sharp contrast with the modest interior of the house he inhabited with his wife and only son, Pierre, in the Rue Aumaire. (5) There was no expert valuation of the objects from which Louis made his living, and it may be noted that the Remy family had no private income. The inventory of Louis Remy's property, dating from ten months after his death, was only drawn up in connection with Pierre Remy's marriage contract, signed on 11 May 1738. (6) He was twenty-two years old when he married Marie-Edmee Adan, which means he must have been born around December 1715; she came from a family of monumental masons. That was the profession of her father, Jean Adan, her three uncles, Jean-Baptiste, Jacques and Nicolas Adan, and her two brothers, Jean-Edme and Jean-Jacques. The bride was given a dowry of three thousand livres in ready money, a third of it reserved for the couple's communal use. The amount of Pierre Remy's dower, twelve hundred livres, was much less; one thousand livres were again for both of them, with the sum to which the widow would be entitled from the estate being set at eight hundred livres. Pierre Remy's family connection with the Adans was to have a direct influence on the path he followed in life. Anne Thiboeuf, Pierre Remy's mother-in-law, turns out to have been a cousin of Edme-Francois Gersaint. On 30 January 1718, she--along with her husband Jean Adan--was a witness at the drawing up of the contract for the famous marchand-mercier's first marriage. (7) Shortly after his marriage to Marie Edmee Adan, Remy is documented as working for the maitre peintre and art dealer Jacques Pingat. Indeed, the inventory of Pingat's papers lists a note written by a man called Heurtout, dated March 1741, payable to Remy. (8) In July 1745, Remy was in Auxois, at the hamlet of Moutier St-Jean, to collect the sum owing to him from the said Heurtout. A receipt, issued in the presence of the local notary, made it clear that Remy was only Pingat's 'nominee'. We are fairly well informed about Pingat, whose seal was published by Jules Guiffrey. (9) A first inventory of his property had been drawn up in 1733, (10) the date of the death of his wife Catherine Demortain, the daughter and sister of maitres peintres. (11) The experts did not attribute the one hundred and eighty or so pictures he had in stock, but Gersaint's name appears under no. 38: 'two pictures jointly owned with Monsieur Gersin, marchand'. Either because that comment was not appropriate within the strict context of an inventory, or because it was incorrect, it was scored through and the following description written in its place: 'one picture depicting a bacchanal in its giltwood frame, valued at 130 livres'. That painting and the next two were in fact the most expensive in the inventory. Quite apart from their situation as neighbours on the Pont Notre-Dame--Gersaint's premises there were the subject of the famous picture by Antoine Watteau (Fig. 1)--the links between Gersaint and Pingat are confirmed by other documents. While the sale catalogue of Angran de Fonspertuis's collection was prepared by Gersaint in 1748, (12) the paintings in that collection had originally been valued by Gersaint and Pingat. (13) On Gersaint's death in 1750, it was Pingat who was appointed to carry out the estimate of his pictures. (14) It seems more reasonable to assume that Remy was introduced to Gersaint through the Adans, and then to Pingat through Gersaint, than that he met the Adans through Pingat or Gersaint. If Remy had got to know his future wife through Pingat and then Gersaint, surely the two dealers would have been present at their friend's wedding. Instead, there was no witness from outside the two families present at Pierre Remy's marriage.

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Gersaint and Pingat were numbered among 'the most skilled connoisseurs' under whom Remy had studied, as he himself reported, not without a certain pride, in the introduction to the catalogue of the Gaignat sale in 1769. (15) We may note that Nicolas-Francois-Jacques Boileau, then fourteen years old, had entered an apprenticeship with Pingat in 1734. (16) The fact that Boileau and Remy, who both became art dealers, (17) worked for Pingat is ample proof of the specialised nature of the teaching he must have imparted. Remy must likewise have met his master's brother-in-law, Savinien Demortain, who also had premises on the Pont Notre-Dame and with whom he bought pictures in partnership. (18) The inventory of Pingat's property drawn up after his death in 1751 gives a clearer picture of the contents of his shop: the expert appointed to value his stock, Savinien Demortain, did in fact give some artists' names. Though he had just bought a picture by Alexis Grimou (1678-1733) depicting 'a Woman with a mask in her hand' for the price of twenty louis, it seems that one of Pingat's specialities at the time was landscape. A large number of landscapes (by the likes of Millet, Patel, and Benard, the most valuable being one by Oudry) are listed alongside marine subjects (eight by Le Cointre, and two early works by Joseph Vernet). Pingat must have thought highly of Remy: he bequeathed him a diamond, and made him responsible for acting as the executor of his will. (19)

After being admitted to the Academie de St-Luc as a maitre peintre on 21 April 1749, Pierre Remy was entitled to sell pictures. In fact, the earliest evidence we have of his business activities goes back to 1748, when he bought a picture of Venus and Adonis with a cupid by Paolo Veronese for three thousand livres at the so-called Maslon de Bercy sale, (20) half financed by the picture restorer and dealer, Jean-Baptiste Slodtz. (21) The profit from the sale of the painting was to be shared equally between them. Their partnership resumed ten years later, but Slodtz's sudden death in 1759 brought it to an end. With his partner's widow, Remy then drew up the accounts of the former partnership. (22) In May and June 1758, Remy had set off for Flanders to stock the partnership with paintings. From his trip he had brought back in particular a selection of landscapes by artists of the Dutch (two Van der Meers, one Paulus Potter 'in his finished manner', one Seascape by Van de Cappelle), Flemish (two Paul Brils), French (two Gaspard Dughets) or German (one Adam Elsheimer) schools. In addition, there were a few still lifes (one Game still life by Pieter Boet, two Still lifes by Baptiste [Blin de Fontenay], and two Vases of flowers by Jan van Huysum), three portraits (one of the Emperor Leopold by David Teniers, another two by T[?]ourelitte [Jacob Toorenvliet?], and three history pictures (a Christ Healing the Man Sick of the Palsy and a Bacchus and Ariadne by Jordaens, as well as a Baptism of Christ by Pier Francesco Mola). Interestingly, an auction of pictures held in Brussels on 22 May 1758 included a Bacchus by Jordaens and a Game still life by Boel. (23) The following day, in Antwerp, a St John the Baptist in a Landscape by Pier Francesco Mola and a Landscape with animals by Paul Potter were included in another auction. (24) These sales would seem to explain the origins of some of the items imported by Remy. Only a small proportion of them had been sold two and a half years later. The Van der Meers, Toorenvliets and Van de Cappelle could hardly have been pictures of great value, in view of the prices for which they were sold (one hundred and forty-five livres for the five). The only really profitable transaction was the sale of the two flower pictures by Van Huysum. The pair had cost seventeen hundred and thirty-six livres (packing and transport included), or almost a third of the cost of the whole group, and they were sold at a profit of more than four hundred and twenty livres (for two thousand one hundred and fifty-seven livres). Finally the dealers had considered it worthwhile to exchange the Brils for an autograph landscape by Jan Brueghel the Elder and another landscape. These two pictures were at Slodtz's premises on his death, and Remy estimated their value at six hundred livres. However, most of the unsold items were at Remy's premises. This was still true of the Paolo Veronese, bought twelve years earlier, as it was their intention to sell it in London. But there--as at other foreign courts--it met with no success. In the end, its many moves had damaged the canvas, with the result that Remy had to undertake its restoration, which cost one hundred and twenty livres. In order to establish a fair market value for the works, Remy called on the picture dealers Pierre Delaunay (1675-1774) and Francois Des Bernard (active 1751-64). They made an overall valuation of the pictures that had come from Flanders, 'on the basis of their purchase and their packing costs', which came to two thousand one hundred livres. As for the Veronese, its value had dropped to one thousand livres. There is a strong likelihood that it was the picture sold in Paris seventeen years later in January 1778 by the dealer Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun, and now in Augsburg (Fig. 2). (25) The final item to be sold off from the Remy-Slodtz partnership was an aquamarine weighing seventy-three grains that Remy had bought from the Antwerp dealer Fierens. Remy promised Slodtz's widow to sell it for the best price possible, provided it was not less than six hundred and forty-two livres, its estimate price. If he did not manage to sell it before or during his forthcoming journey to Flanders, he would return it to the dealer Fierens who was willing to take it back at cost, namely three hundred livres.

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Like his partner, Remy must have carried on some form of independent business. The total value of the forty or so pictures that Slodtz owned independently at his death was one thousand livres, of which three hundred livres was accounted for by a pair of paintings by David Teniers. This was much less than his half of the capital of his partnership with Remy, in which each share was worth over three thousand and twenty-seven livres. Restorations of works on canvas (by Van der Kabel and Van de Velde among others), panel (an Albrecht Durer, if the inventory is to be believed) or on paper (a pastel by Rosalba Carriera) constituted a source of extra income for Slodtz, who also bore the title of 'painter to the Duc d'Orleans'. The fact that Slodtz was primarily a restorer must surely have helped hone Remy's visual skills.

Francois-Louis Colins (1699-1760), a picture dealer from Brussels, was also active on the Paris scene at the same period. His marriage contract with Catherine Malafaire is dated 6 November 1724; (26) she was related through her aunt to another family of picture dealers, the Van Hecks. (27) Evidence concerning Colins's character can be found in the writings of Voltaire. When staying in Brussels in 1739, Voltaire sent a letter to his Paris correspondent, the Abbe Moussinot, expressing concern about the fate of three crates of pictures. (28) The purchase of the pictures in question had been financed by the two men and they were supposed to be resold through the offices of a man called Colins. The business turned out badly: Voltaire feared he had lost money, and that he would have to take legal proceedings against 'poor, deranged, inept' Colins. (29) The murder in 1741 of Joseph Ferdinand Godefroy, (30) the picture restorer to the royal collection, was to change the course of Colins's career. Since Marie Jeanne Van Merle, Godefroy's wife, was also his business partner, she had to find a new associate. She decided to turn to a dealer with whose talents as a restorer she was probably familiar--none other than Colins. (31) Their partnership lasted for nearly twenty years. However, it seems that buying and selling pictures was his principal pursuit: 'Monsieur Colins being occupied only with travelling for his business ...', she would write to Cochin at the time when a replacement for Colins was beginning to be considered in 1759. (32)

Remy was only too well aware of Colins's reputation, and of the threat he might constitute for his business dealings. For example, that celebrated artistic dynasty, the Van Loos, had called upon his services. On the death of Jean-Baptiste Van Loo (1684-1745), Louis-Michel and Charles-Amedee Van Loo had the pictures that had been left in their father's studio transferred in crates from Toulon to Paris and asked Colins to estimate their value. (33) At the same period Colins, in conjunction with Oudry, valued the collection of works of art belonging to another major painter, Hyacinthe Rigaud. (34) Princes of the blood like Louis-Henri, Duc de Bourbon; (35) statesmen like Voyer d'Argenson; his nephew Antoine-Francois Meliand; (36) and other notables to be discussed below had all given him their trust. Colins had even managed to the sell Van Dyck's Christ on the Cross, then thought to be by Rubens, and now in the Louvre (Fig. 3), as well as a genre scene by Caspar Netscher, Lady at her toilet, for the royal collection. (37)

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What do we know about relations between Colins and Remy? No doubt they had made one another's acquaintance through Pingat: in April 1751, Colins and Pingat had bought two thousand seven hundred livres' worth of pictures in partnership. (38) In 1754, Remy and Colins worked together on the valuation of the Pasquier collection, (39) which famously included Correggio's celebrated Leda, whose head was repainted by Colins. Now, Remy prepared the catalogue of the Pasquier sale alone. (40) A handwritten note reports that Colins was angry not to have been asked to help produce the catalogue, (41) and the two men fell out for that reason. But Remy had enough business sense not to damage his rival's reputation, even going so far as to pay him a posthumous tribute in 1769. (42) Colins had been the man behind the splendid Gaignat collection of paintings, Remy wrote in the preface to the catalogue of that sale: 'He [Gaignat] could not have chosen a finer connoisseur. The rumours motivated by base jealousy to which picture dealing more than any other business today exposes [those engaged in it] made no impression on M Gaignat's mind. By following other guides, he would have fallen into traps which would have prevented him from following his inclinations.' (43)

The anecdote relating to the preparation of the Pasquier sale raises the question of how experts were remunerated in Paris in the eighteenth century. When the inventory of the works of art in the Pasquier collection was produced, Colin and Remy each received a louis d'or--the equivalent of twenty-four livres--for their two sessions (two half-days of work). In this specific case, the fee per session amounted to a mere twelve livres, but it could be much more. About thirty years earlier, the six hundred livres the dealer Pierre Testard earned for his expert valuation of the Regent's collection was his payment for a total of six sessions. (44) In the absence of a printed catalogue, experts sometimes also introduced the lots verbally during auctions. In 1768, the sale of the works of art belonging to the picture dealer Antoine Legras realised approximately twelve thousand seven hundred livres. Augustin Menageot, who was responsible for introducing the works at the actual auction, received one hundred and twenty-six livres, or less than one percent of the sale total. (45) The production of a catalogue, on the other hand, must have proved much more lucrative. In his will, the Ambassador Bourbet de Vaux instructed Colins to auction his pictures, at a commission rate of 'le sol pour livre'--in other words, five percent--of the sale total. (46) That five percent was to cover all the work undertaken by Colins, including not only the presentation of the works, but also the preparation of a catalogue: in this instance, the catalogue of the auction, which took place in June 1752, has survived. (47) The figure of five percent crops up again in the case of the post mortem sale of the collection of the painter Francois Boucher in 1771. Of the ninety-eight thousand, eight hundred and twenty-nine livres realised by the sale, Remy was entitled to five thousand, six hundred and twenty-two livres for having prepared the catalogue. (48) The fees must have been calculated on a different basis in the case of the Pasquier sale. The round sum of six hundred livres which Remy received was not a percentage of the sale total (seventy eight thousand, two hundred and fifty-eight livres). It was no doubt more than Remy, who was a novice, and boasted of having 'made the catalogue in twenty-four hours', could have hoped for. Perhaps that is why Colins was cut out of the deal.

The episode of the quarrel with Colins may give rise to the impression that Remy was trying to produce sale catalogues on his own. But in fact, from 1755 to 1762, that is to say during the first seven years of his work as a writer of catalogues, Remy collaborated on almost every other sale, sometimes with a man called Helle, sometimes with a man called Glomy. What were the backgrounds of these experts, and what was the nature of their special area of expertise? Pierre Charles Alexandre Helle was described as an engineer to the king in 1751 when he married Marie Madeleine Etienne, the daughter of a jeweller. (49) Their marriage contract was signed in the office of the lawyer Claude Potier, a wealthy collector of pictures, drawings and prints. On Potier's death in 1757, Helle took responsibility for preparing the catalogue for the sale of his collection, (50) but it was Pierre Remy who had drawn up a first inventory of the lawyer's works of art two years previously on the death of his wife. (51) Jean-Baptiste Glomy on the other hand came from a humbler background. He was the son of a mason from Auxerre and had started an apprenticeship in 1729 at the age of eighteen with a marchand-mercier by the name of Pierre Henry Taumiet. (52) No doubt it was in the world of marchands-merciers that Glomy was introduced to Gersaint. Indeed, not only did Glomy and Helle produce the catalogue for the sale of Gersaint's property on his death, (53) but in addition soon afterwards they published the catalogue of Rembrandt prints started by Gersaint and completed by themselves. (54) Everything points to the fact that that Remy, Helle and Glomy became acquainted at Gersaint's premises. And it is almost certain that Remy and Helle formed a partnership: 'Helle et Remy' is an annotation found several times in the margin of the sale catalogue of the painter Peeter Snyers at Antwerp on 22 August 1752. This might also explain why Remy shared many of the same clients as Helle and his friend Glomy. Furthermore, the various collections for which Remy produced sale catalogues with the help of Helle or Glomy all had the particular characteristic of being heterogeneous. Pictures, porcelain and drawings appear alongside items of natural history and other objects that could be classified as curiosities. One may well wonder whether Remy and the two connoisseurs divided the work between them based on the nature of the objects on which an expert valuation was required. When it came to works on paper, for example, was Remy as well informed as Helle and Glomy? The fact that he was not is apparently confirmed in the foreword to the dictionary of prints written by his contemporary Heinecken in 1778: 'Pierre Remy, who succeeded Helle and Glomy as an auctioneer in Paris, was more knowledgeable about pictures than about prints.' (55) The possibility that he had subsequently made progress in the field of works on paper might explain why Remy only occasionally ran sales in collaboration with other experts after 1762. While he was first and foremost a connoisseur of pictures, Remy was well qualified in other fields relating to works of art. Moreover, the deterioration in relations between Glomy and Remy, highlighted by Krzysztof Pomian, (56) would explain the end of any partnership that may have existed between the two men. In view of Remy's subsequent progress and the undistinguished career of Glomy, (57) it would appear that Remy gained most from the collaboration.

The increasing frequency of his presence in the salerooms, the printing of his name in countless catalogues, and his general omniscience were all means of expanding the network of collectors under his control, and establishing himself vis-a-vis his main rival in the 1760s, namely the engraver Francois Joullain (1697-1778). An inventory of Joullain's property drawn up in 1762, the year of his wife's death, (58) demonstrates the high value of the stock in his shop, which was located on the Quai de la Megisserie. Consisting mainly of volumes of prints, it was valued at forty-four thousand livres. At that time Joullain was operating as a major entrepreneur, using the services of his son Charles Francois for frames, (59) Boileau (whom we came across thirty years earlier chez Pingat), Jean-Baptiste Colins (the restorer's son), engravers like Pierre-Francois Basan and other associates in Europe. Although he concentrated primarily on the print market, Joullain must have had a sound reputation as a connoisseur of paintings. As proof of this we have the testimony supplied by Pierre Testard, one of the most active picture dealers in Paris in the first half of the eighteenth century. Shortly before his death, Testard was anxious to have the pictures that formed the stock of his shop, which reputedly included works by the likes of Poussin, Valentin, Albani, Guercino, Rubens, and Watteau, valued and sold. He did not turn to Gersaint and his circle on the Pont Notre-Dame to carry out the valuation, nor to his own associates such as Delaunay, Renders and Beauchamp; instead, he chose Francois Joullain, because--as he wrote in his will--'he is a very honest and wise man'. (60)

We have seen how Remy had gradually established a network of relationships centred on dealers on the Pont Notre-Dame such as Gersaint. We now turn to his links with a crucial figure in the world of picture restoration, who has been mentioned above: Godefroy's widow. She was related to the painter Antoine Dieu (c. 1662-1727), the same man whose shop had been acquired for Gersaint at the time of his first marriage in 1718. (61) Therefore it was probably through Gersaint that Remy came into contact with Mme Godefroy. Her responsibility for the conservation and restoration of the pictures in the royal collection over a period of more than forty years (from 1721 until her death in 1764) eventually served to increase her fame. A great many collectors from the upper aristocracy or rich middle classes called on her skill. In 1759, she wrote that she had 'restored around four hundred pictures for M. le Baron [Crozat] de Thiers' with the help of Hugues-Henri Guillemard. (62) As for Joseph Ferdinand Godefroy, he had been the peintre attitre of one of the richest paintings connoisseurs of his day, Charles-Amedee de Savoie, Prince de Carignan. (63) The inventory of Godefroy's property, drawn up in 1762, twenty-one years after his accidental death, reveals a long list of debtors. (64) Besides the two thousand three hundred livres owed by the Batiments du Roi, his widow was owed a total of six thousand two hundred livres by forty-seven private individuals. Among the list of debtors, we find the names of the Duchesse de Brancas, the Duc de Chaulnes, Crozat de Thiers, the Duc de Bouillon, the Fermier General Dange, the Duc de Grammont, the Englishman Samuel Hayes and the Marquis de Villette--all future clients of Pierre Remy. (65) Turning to the witnesses at the marriage in 1763 of Mme Godefroy's daughter, Marguerite-Joseph, to Luc-Vincent Thiery, (66) the author of the descriptions of the curious sights of the city of Paris, (67) it emerges that in addition to the painter Jean-Baptiste Hutin, (68) a cousin of the bride, they included three of Remy's most famous clients: Ange-Laurent de La Live (Fig. 4), Jean de Julienne (Fig. 5) and the Marquise de Pompadour (Fig. 6). (69) Joseph-Ferdinand Godefroy's relations with Karel van Falens (1683-1733) also deserve to be mentioned. Painter to the Duc d'Orleans, he was accepted as a member of the Academie royale de peinture et sculpture in 1726 after submitting two genre pictures in the manner of Wouvermans (Figs. 7 and 8). Although the Academie royale prohibited its members from running a shop, Van Falens--and he was not unique in this--bought and sold pictures: in the inventory of his estate, sums of money owed by the deceased for the price of pictures bought in partnership with Joseph-Ferdinand Godefroy and Francois Des Bernard are recorded. (70) Furthermore, it transpires that Karel van Falens was married to Marie Slodtz, the sister of Jean-Baptiste Slodtz. That kinship might well clarify the origins of the partnership between Slodtz and Remy.

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Remy started his career as an auctioneer at a period when the notion of artistic schools was gaining ground in the minds of the experts. As the heir to a system of classification perfected by Gersaint and Mariette, Remy pursued the undertaking of modernising expertises. The idea of paintings having greater or lesser value was replaced by that of works of greater or lesser authenticity, with the result that the authorship of a work determined its price. None the less, in the 1740s appraisals of pictures that still confined themselves to mentioning the subject depicted were in the majority. The inventories drawn up by Pierre Delaunay, Pierre Testard, Claude Lallemand and Jean-Baptiste Renders, for example, continue to follow that tradition. The originality of Remy's expert opinions lay in his naming the author of a work to the best of his ability, attributing it or comparing it with something familiar. It should be noted that this was also the method followed by Francois Louis Colins.

While the auction catalogues give the experts' final view, the handwritten valuations of works of art in the inventories of estates show what the job actually involved. The words scored through make it possible to follow the experts' train of thought, or even the extent of their connoisseurship. In the list of the pictures in the Pasquier Collection, the presence of small crosses in the margin against certain numbers may be detected. In every case, they reflect uncertainty as to the designation of the works. Some attributions were to be reconsidered. Thus, with reference to a picture depicting Tobias, Rembrandt (which can be seen under the line scoring it through) was the first name that came to the experts' minds. On reflection, they wrote 'Conhinc' (Salomon Koninck), and it was under that name that the painting in question was sold. (71) Pasquier had two pictures of Rest on the Flight into Egypt side by side. Colin and Remy attributed the first, in oval format at that time (Fig. 9), to 'Pesarese' [Simone Cantarini]. That picture was well known to Colins, since he had seen it two years earlier at Bourbet de Vaux's house. (72) The second (Fig. 10) initially seemed to the experts to be the work of 'Guide' [Guido Reni]. However, probably influenced by the appearance of the other picture, they scored out 'Guide' and replaced it by 'Pesarese'. Nevertheless, Remy reverted to the initial attribution to Guido Reni when he drew up the final catalogue. (73) Subsequently, it--like its oval counterpart--was purchased for the collections of Louis XVI, and more than a century went by before it regained its correct (manuscript) attribution to Cantarini. (74) In both cases, the paintings were demoted from masters to their pupils. Other corrections reveal the experts' exacting approach. Two pictures by Jean-Baptiste Santerre had been ticked: one depicted a Woman making music, the other a Beggar woman. Initially Remy and Colins grouped the two paintings together as pendants. On second thoughts, the two paintings were numbered separately, probably because of a slight difference in format and their incompatible iconography. Distinctions concerning imitation were clear in the experts' minds, as the following example demonstrates. Colins and R6my had at first written: 'two pictures copied from Poussin representing Bacchanals'. The words 'copied from' were scored out, and the word 'after' put in their place. The subtle shade of meaning can no doubt be explained by the degree of faithfulness of the pictures in question with regard to the originals. Of course the little crosses also related to instances where the estimate was not easy to determine.

[FIGURES 9&10 OMITTED]

When looking at the inventory stage, which did not necessarily lead to a catalogue, it is important to emphasise the precision and richness of the terms used by Remy to designate paintings. Designations can if appropriate cover the notion of authorship and that of style when in the eyes of the expert these did not quite tally: 'a landscape by Guillerot in the manner of Bourdon' (75) is an example of this. Such precision also occurs in the case of foreign schools: 'a subject in the taste of Wouvermans by Van Ceylen'. (76) In the case of a copy, on occasion not only the name of the author of the original work was given, but also that of the copyist: 'two pictures by Delyen after Murillo'. (77) Identification of the copyist's hand was possible only if the expert had been advised of the origin of the works, or if he had already been furnished with an introduction to the picture collection. Sometimes, it is the quality of execution of a copy that is indicated: 'the fight of the Amazons, very well copied after Rubens'. (78) Here the additional information is the basis of the picture's value: it was estimated at three hundred livres. Still on the subject of copying, Remy goes so far as to use a strikingly modern expression as early as 1755: 'two forged Teniers, one quite well done'. (79) Not only is their fraudulent nature emphasised, but in addition the degree of success in that intention is assessed.

One fairly rare phenomenon is the reevaluation of a collection, what might be dubbed a counter-expertise. This did happen in the case of Noel Araignon, a valet de chambre to the queen, who was instructed to acquire pictures for the royal collections at the sale of the Prince de Carignan. On Araignon's death in 1756, an inventory was drawn up and his pictures were valued by the maitre peintre Claude Lallemand. (80) No names were given, but the high prices would seem to justify the assumption that he owned some outstanding pictures. When his widow died in 1767, her heirs had a bailiff's assessment of her movable property carried out. But a new valuation of the pictures seemed necessary to them, 'given the present rate of exchange'. (81) Was the economic situation really the problem? Was it not rather Lallemant's expert opinion that had to be treated with caution? To get a more accurate idea of the pictures' value, Araignon's children turned to Pierre Remy, presenting him with the 1756 inventory. He lowered the prices of all the paintings; however, it should be underlined that this was not done on a uniform sliding scale, since some went down by twenty percent compared with their initial valuation, while others went down by up to seventy percent. 'A Rape of Europa by Claude Lorrain, valued at fifteen hundred livres, will be valued here at only one thousand livres'. This work was included in the 'vente a l'amiable' (private treaty sale) Araignon had organised to dispose of some of his pictures in 1751. (82) Two pictures by Domenico Fetti valued at one thousand livres by Lallemant, one depicting the Prodigal Son, the other the Story of Joseph (this was in fact the Parable of the Pearl), dropped to five hundred livres in 1767. In this case, problems of authenticity affected their value (they too had featured in the 1751 sale). (83) Despite attributing them to Fetti in full, Remy must have sensed a certain weakness in the quality of this pair, which were in fact derivations from the originals in Dresden. (84) A picture by a member of the Bassano family, painted on panel and depicting Christ, was valued at four hundred livres by Lallemand, but was worth only one hundred and twenty livres eleven years later. Remy was out to demonstrate that the Araignon collection had been overvalued. Of course, Araignon did own fine works such as a Tancred and Erminia by Guercino, (85) a substantial painting recently acquired by the National Gallery of Scotland in Edinburgh (Fig. 11), and the Claude Lorrain, but during the 1751 sale he had been reproached with trying to dispose of pictures that were in very bad condition or had been wrongly attributed, and above all with presenting copies as originals. Yet again, beside wholesalers like Araignon and Lallemand, Remy comes across as a true connoisseur.

[FIGURE 11 OMITTED]

It has been possible to reconstruct Pierre Remy's training only through the compilation of disparate notarial documents. However, many questions remain unanswered, even if we confine ourselves to the topics covered here. The existence of an account book would doubtless reveal far greater complexities in the exchanges and networks of dealers among whom Remy moved. From this point of view, the absence of any inventory or list of Remy's effects under the ancien regime is most regrettable. The handwritten annotations in auction catalogues of the period do none the less make it possible to keep track of Remy's many purchases and transactions. Furthermore, the nature of the debates he engaged in concerning stylistic matters or on the thorny problem of authenticity would be revealed only by a diary or by the testimonies of his contemporaries. The prefaces Remy wrote for his own catalogues, valuable though they are, give only a faint insight into these crucial questions. Moreover, we may justifiably feel surprised at the absence of any works of a scholarly nature in the inventory of his estate drawn up after his death in 1797. Remy, who was the owner of a number of properties, had by then become a wealthy dealer. (86) For all our ignorance about his later life, it has to be admitted that we are only marginally better informed about the period up to the 1770s: about the company Remy kept, about his associates in his early days, and about what led to his becoming the most sought-after expert of the day in Paris.

APPENDIX

A chronological list of inventories of estates held in the Minutier central of the Archives Nationales in Paris (hereafter AN) which include expertises by Pierre Remy. A number of inventories were traced through J. Guiffrey, 'Scelles d'artistes francais des 17 et 18eme siecles', 3 vols., Nouvelles Archives de l'Art Francais, 1883-85. Where appropriate, reference will be made to these publications of archival material, as well as to the other specialist works which refer to valuations by Pierre Remy. Finally, also included are the expertises discovered by Mireille Rambaud, Conservateur at the Archives Nationales, in the course of her researches among notarial documents.

Marie Marguerite Brochant, wife of Athanase Alexandre Clement de Boissy, counsellor to the king, ordinary secretary to his Chamber of Accounts, discovered by Mireille Rambaud (AN, vol. XCII, 585, 27 November 1753).

Marie Moreau, wife of Claude Potier, lawyer (AN, vol. IV, 594, 13 January 1755).

Louis-Francois Aubert, miniaturist, member of the Academie de St-Luc; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 215-16 (AN, vol. XXXIX, 432, 7 November 1755), in collaboration with Denis Robinot.

Louis-Francois Pasquier, business delegate for Normandy; published in part in D. Wildenstein, Inventaires apres deces d'artistes et de collectionneurs francais du 18eme siecle, Paris, 1967, p. 177 (AN, vol. LIII, p. 343, 10 December 1754), in collaboration with Francois-Louis Collins.

Marie Elisabeth de Cleves, widow of Pierre Nolasque Couvay, counsellor and secretary to the king (AN, vol. CIX, 628, 17 February 1759).

Jean-Baptiste Slodtz, painter, member of the Academie de St-Luc; D. Wildenstein, Documents inedits sur les artistes francais au XVIIIeme siecle, Paris, 1966, p. 127 (AN, vol. LXXXIII, 822, 26 September 1759).

Marthe Marie Nicole Calvel, wife of Antoine Henry Patu Deshaulchamp, equerry (AN, vol. LXXVIII, 737, 21 February 1760).

Louis de Silvestre, former director of the Academie royale de peinture et sculpture, former first painter at the court of Dresden; R.A. Weigert, 'Documents inedits sur Louis de Silvestre', Societe de l'Histoire de l'Art Francais, vol. XVII, 1932, pp. 30-34 (AN, vol. CXIII, 424, 17 April 1760).

Pierre Francois Doublet, Marquis de Bandeville, counsellor to the king, honorary president at the Parlement (AN, vol. LXXVI, 378; 27 March 1761).

Charles Jolly, painter, member of the Academie de St-Luc (AN, vol. IV, 635, 8 July 1761).

Louis-Gabriel Peilhon, counsellor and secretary to the king (AN, vol. LXVIII, 637; 14 July 1762).

Anne Antoinette Mezieres, wife of Louis Chauveau, painter, member of the Academie de St-Luc (AN, vol. XIX, 765, 27 January 1763).

Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, Marquise de Pompadour Jean Cordey, Inventaire apres deces de Madame de Pompadour redige apres son deces, Paris, 1939 (AN, vol. LVI, 113-114, 26 July 1764).

Marie Tramblin, wife of Pierre Delaunay, rector of the Academie de St-Luc (AN, vol. XXIV, 796, 28 March 1765), in collaboration with Nicolas Francois Jacques Boileau and Louis-Claude Dumesnil.

Jean-Baptiste Deshayes, history painter, member of the Academie royale (AN, vol. XXXV, 742, 1 March 1765).

Pierre Charles Marquis Duplessis Villette, counsellor to the king, former treasurer of the special war fund (AN, vol. CXV, 768, 21 May 1765).

Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville Jacqueline Labbe and Lise Bicart-See, La collection de dessins d'Antoine-Joseph Dezallier d'Argenville, Paris, 1966, p. 10, note 9 (AN, vol. XLIX, 749, 10 December 1765).

Jacques-Andre-Joseph Aved, portraitist, member of the Acaddmie royale; G. Wildenstein, Le peintre Aved: sa vie et son oeuvre, 2 vols., vol. I, pp. 208-12, 3 March 1766.

Catherine Sarocold, widow of Samuel Hayes, an English gentleman (AN, vol. CVIII 581, 1 October 1766).

Jean de Jullienne, director of the Gobelins tapestry factory; E. Dacier and A. Vuaflart, Jean de Jullienne et les graveurs de Watteau au 18eme siecle, 3 vols., Paris, 1929, vol. I, p. 220 (AN, vol. XXIX, 529, 1766).

Nicolas Charles Silvestre, drawing master to the queen (AN, vol. CXIII, 437, 25 May 1767), in collaboration with Pierre-Francois Basan.

Jean-Baptiste Masse, engraver and miniaturist member of the Academie royale; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 407-11 (AN, vol. XCVII 422; 13 October 1767).

Marie Simon, widow of Noel Araignon, former manservant to the queen (AN, vol. XXIV, 837, 13 October 1767).

Louis Cressent, cabinet-maker; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 413-25 ((AN, vol. III, 1016, 19 January 1768).

Pierre-Antoine Baudouin, miniaturist, member of the Academie royale (AN, vol. XXXV, 761, 31 January 1770).

Louis-Rene Vialy, painter, member of the Academie de St-Luc; R.A. Weigert, 'Testament et inventaire apres deces de Louis-Rene Vialy', Bulletin de la Societe de l'Histoire de l'Art Francais, Paris, 1931, pp. 146-58 (AN, vol. LXV, 13 March 1770).

Anne Auguste Herault, widow of Francois Hutin, painter to the king of Poland; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 2-3 (AN, vol. LXXXIII, 546, 16 February 1771).

Pierre Francois d'Hautpoul, Marquis de Roquefort; discovered by Mireille Rambaud (AN, vol. XCI, 1095, 12 October 1771).

Jacques Verbeckt, sculptor, member of the Academie royale; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 13-18 (AN, vol. XIII, 369, 9 December 1771).

Anne Jarry, wife of Francois Balthazar Dange, fermier general (AN, vol. LXXXVII, 1138, 24 March 1772).

Joseph Joachim Thomas de Cohorn, Marquis de La Palun, governor of Bourbon and the town of Orange; discovered by Mireille Rambaud (AN, vol. XCI, 1106, 9 December 1772).

Alexis Piron, advocate at the Parliament (AN, vol. XXIX, 549; 27 September 1773).

Pierre Schovaerts, Chevalier de Valcourt, a Flemish painter (AN, vol. CXIII, 471, 23 July 1773).

Gabriel Joseph de Tournay d'Assignies, Chevalier d'Oisy, ship's captain (AN?, seal held under letter Y, 13969, 22 May 1776).

Augustin Blondel de Gagny, treasurer of the redemption office (AN, vol. LVII 529, 17 September 1776).

Pierre-Paul Randon de Boisset, collector of finance (AN, vol. LXXXIV, 546; 18 October 1776).

Louis-Francois de Bourbon, Prince de Conti; any author/editor?, Les tresors des princes de Bourbon-Conti, exh. cat., Paris, 2000, p. 47 (AN?, seal held under letter x 1 A 9179, 4 September 1776).

Louis Chauveau, painter, member of the Academie de St-Luc (AN, vol. VI, 812, 25 September 1777).

Georges-Alexis-Bertrand Remond, former butler to the king (AN, vol. XXXIX, 569, 5 May 1778).

Maximilien Emmanuel, Comte de Watteville (AN, vol. XXXVI, 566, 14 May 1779).

Cesar Leu Marie de Selle de Garejade, former treasurer general for the navy and the colonies (AN, vol. LXII, 587, 12 March 1781).

Claude Florentin Sollier, painter, member of the Acaddmie de St-Luc; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 159-60 (AN, vol. XVII, 1025, 3 February 1784), in collaboration with Vincent Donjeux.

Alexis Janvier La Live de La Briche, honorary secretary of the queen's commanders; discovered by M. Rambaud (AN, vol. XCI, 1230, 1 September 1785).

Abraham Joseph Michelet d'Ennery (AN?, seal held under letter Y, 11029, 8 April 1786), in collaboration with Alphonse Denis Gaspart Miliotty for the valuation of antiquities.

Catherine Bigot de Graveron, widow of Pierre Francois Doublet, Marquis de Bandeville (vol. LXXVI 505; 2 August 1787).

Nicolas Desportes, painter of still-lifes, member of the Academie royale; Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. III, pp. 201-203 (AN, vol. IX, 814, 12 October 1787).

Catherine Augustine de Boisset d'Arville, widow of Antoine Marquis d'Albert, squadron leader in the navy (AN, vol. LXXXV, 710, 9 April 1788).

Etienne Jeaurat, history painter, member of the Academie royale (AN, vol. LXXIII, 1106; 28 December 1789).

Marie Therese Josephe Carton, widow of Francois Vallee-Duplessis; discovered by Mireille Rambaud (AN, vol. XCI, 1311; 4 Prairial Year II [179?]).

(1) The three main studies relating to these eighteenth-century dealers and experts are the following: Pierre Casselle, 'Pierre Francois Basan', Paris et Ile de France: Memoires, vol. XXXIII, 1982, pp. 99-185; Jo Lean Edwards, A.J. Paillet, Paris, 1995, and Guillaume Glorieux, Edme-Francois Gersaint, doctoral thesis submitted to L'Universite Paris IV -Sorbonne in November 2000. A DEA (Diplome d'Etudes Approfondies) dissertation on Pierre Remy, written by Severine Daroussat, was submitted to the same university in October 2000.

(2) Frits Lugt, Repertoire des catalogues de ventes publiques, premiere periode (c. 1600-1825), The Hague, 1938.

(3) The expertises of 1753 and 1794 were both discovered by Mireille Rambaud; see the Appendix, which contains a list of expertises by Remy.

(4) Paris, Archives Nationales, minutier central (hereafter AN, MC), vol. LXXII, p. 209, 9 March 1714, marriage contract of Louis Remy and Marie Anne Pietrequin.

(5) AN, MC, vol. XXXVIII, p. 297, 15 April 1738. The clientele of Louis Remy appears under papers in the inventory of his estate. The Rue Aumaire, which no longer exists, was in the St-Martin-des-Champs district.

(6) AN, MC, XXXVIII, 298, 11 May 1738.

(7) AN, MC, CVIII, 331, 30 January 1718.

(8) AN, MC, LXXXI, 330, 7 April 1751, inventory of the estate of Jacques Pingat, cote 5.

(9) Jules Guiffrey, 'Scelles et inventaires d'artistes francais', Nouvelles Archives de l'Art Francais, Paris, 1884, vol. II, pp. 133-34.

(10) AN, MC, LXXVI, 257, 21 March 1733, inventory of the estate of Catherine Fleury Demortain.

(11) From his marriage to Anne Noel, the maitre peintre Gilles Demortain had five children, including Catherine Demortain, the wife of Pingat, and Savinien Demortain, whose marriage contract with Marie Madeleine Charlier is dated 2 January 1722. On 18 January 1729, Gilles Demortain's widow sold her husband's professional stock to Savinien Demortain (document executed before Maitre Goudin, notary, which has not been traced). Demortain, who was one of the first authors of printed auction catalogues, primarily seems to have been a dealer in prints. On his death, his shop was the subject of a valuation by Pierre Francois Beaumont and Francois Joullain (AN, MC, LXXXI, 395, 22 August 1765), but it was Pierre Remy who conducted the auction of the items in his estate on 5 February 1776 (Lugt 2483).

(12) Edme-Francois Gersaint, Catalogue raisonne des bijoux, porcelaines ... de la succession du vicomte de Fonspertuis, Paris, 1748 (Lugt 2483).

(13) AN, MC, LXVII, 558, 20 July 1747. Guillaume Glorieux has kindly informed me (personal communication, 2000) that Gersaint, precisely because he was a marchand mercier, was not allowed to produce expertises on his own. If he wished to give expertises on works of art, he had to do so in conjunction with a painter or maitre peintre. However, two episodes would appear to contradict this: Gersaint was solely responsible for producing expertises for the paintings in the post mortem inventory of Angelique Guy, the wife of Michel Pincemaille (AN, MC, XCIX, 28 November 1735), and for the prints belonging to Nicolas Gautrot, maitre peintre (for which, see n. 58 below).

(14) AN, MC, LX, 334, 1 April 1750, inventory of the estate of Edme-Francois Gersaint. This inventory is already listed in the registre de depouillement of the Minutier central of the Archives Nationales.

(15) Pierre Remy, Catalogue d' une collection composant le cabinet de feu Jean-Louis Gaignat ..., Paris, 1769 (Lugt 1734).

(16) AN, MC, XXXVIII, 278, 28 August 1734.

(17) In particular, Boileau was the author of the catalogue of the auction of the collection of the Duc de Choiseul, from 6 to 10 April 1772 (Lugt 2020).

(18) He is named in the account for the execution of the will of Jacques Pingat (AN, MC, IV, 576, 9 March 1752).

(19) AN, MC, LXXX, 329, 22 March 1751, for the will.

(20) The so-called Maslon de Bercy auction does not appear in Lugt's Repertoire. The collection appears to have been that of Nicolas Charles Maslon, counsellor to the king. His Chateau de Bercy was decorated with pictures set into panelling by Nicolas Bertin, Francois Desportes, and other French artists of the period. The inventory of his estate contains a description by Alexandre-Joseph Paillet of this painted decoration (AN, MC, LXVIII, 638, 7 April 1790).

(21) Daniel Wildenstein, Documents inedits sur les artistes francais au XVIIIeme siecle, Paris, 1966, p. 127. The brother of the sculptor Michel-Ange Slodtz, Jean-Baptiste Slodtz, was called on in particular to give an expert valuation of the collection of works of art of the dean to the queen, Samuel II Bernard, in 1753 (AN, MC, LXXXVIII, 629, 13 August 1753). After Slodtz's death, his widow remarried, marrying another picture dealer of Flemish origin, Pierre Schovaerdts, Chevalier de Walcourt, who bore the title of painter to Archduchess Marie Elisabeth of the Netherlands (AN, MC, II, 613, 6 February 1766). Lugt erroneously dissassociated the names of Slodtz and Walcourt with regard to the auction held in Paris on 22 September 1773 (Lugt 2196), which was that of one and the same person: Schovaerdts.

(22) AN, MC, LXXIII, 832, 30 October 1760, for the accounts.

(23) Catalogue de tableaux du cabinet de feu Martin Robyns, Brussels, 22 May 1758 (Lugt 1006), lot 93 ('Bacchus met zeeve andere Figuuren door Jordaens') and no. 126 ('Diren na't Leevn in een Lanschap, door Pieter Boel').

(24) Catalogue d'un tres bon cabinet de tableaux ... Snijers, Antwerp, 23 May 1758 (Lugt 1008), no. 143 ('Eenen S. Jan Baptist in een Lanschap, door Molo, hoog 19. en halven vo d., breed 17. op paneel'), no. 153 ('Een schoon Lanschap met Beestiens, door Potter zynde paneel, hoog 19. d. breed 26').

(25) The picture appeared as lot 7 in the Le Brun sale, Paris, 19 January 1778 CLugt 2772).

(26) AN, MC, LI, 846, 6 November 1724.

(27) Nicole Malafaire, the aunt of Catherine Malafaire, was the wife of the picture dealer Andre Van Heck (Mireille Rambaud, Documents du minutier central concernant l'histoire de l'art, Paris, 1964, vol. I, pp. 391-95, and 774-80). At the time of his marriage, their son Francois Andre Van Heck, owned twenty-five thousand livres' worth of pictures and frames (AN, MC, XXXVIII, 282, 30 August 1735).

(28) Voltaire, Correspondance, Theodore Besterman (ed.), Tours, 1965, vol. II, pp. 181, 198, 231, 232, 234. From the early 1730s, Voltaire was involved in this type of activity. Among his clients, mention may be made of Antoinette Madeleine de Bordeaux, widow of Comte de Fontaine Martel, to whom he sold a stock of pictures in 1732 (AN, MC, XLV, February 1732).

(29)... 'pauvre, derange et inapplique' Colins. Voltaire, op. cit., vol. II, p. 232.

(30) The circumstances of his death were published by Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. I pp. 394-417.

(31) On the very day of his murder, Joseph Ferdinand Godefroy and the picture dealer Jerome Francois Chantereau had been in discussion regarding the authenticity of a picture by Carlo Maratta sold by Colins to Lord Valgrave (see previous note).

(32)... 'le sieur Colins n'etant occupe que de ses voyages pour son commerce ...', AN, 01, 1909, letter dated 22 December 1759, in which she advises Cochin to appoint Guillemard to take over from Colins.

(33) AN, MC, XXIV, 741, 2 September 1754, distribution of the estate of Jean-Baptiste van Loo.

(34) J. Guiffrey, op. cit., vol. II, pp. 44-66.

(35) Rambaud, op. cit., Paris, 1964, vol. I, p. 593.

(36) His collection of pictures was estimated by Colins (AN, MC, LI, 951, 5 June 1747).

(37) The Rubens was sold in 1749 and the Netscher in 1751 (Fernand Engerand, Inventaire des tableaux, Paris, 1900, vol. II, pp. 535 and 606). The tone of the entry Mariette devoted to Colins is distinctly ironical: 'His talent reduced him to making copies of Flemish pictures, but he was much more skilled at cleaning them, and that led to him being chosen to look after the king's pictures in conjunction with the widow of Monsieur Godefroy. For all his experience, the pictures that passed under his hands were always greatly at risk, for any picture cleaned is a picture spoilt, something dealers never admit but which is nevertheless true. He also prided himself on being a great connoisseur; he was, but exclusively for Flemish pictures. Monsieur de Voyer and Monsieur de Gaignat had given him their trust' (Son talent le reduisoit a faire des copies de tableaux flamands mais il entendait encore mieux a les nettoyer et cela l'avait fait choisir pour avoir l'entretien de ceux du roi conjointement avec la veuve Godefroy. Quelqu'experimente qu'il fut, il y avait toujours beaucoup a risquer pour les tableaux qui passoient sous sa main, car tout tableau nettoye est un tableau gate, chose dont les marchands ne conviennent jamais mais ce qui Wen est pas moins vrai. Il se piquoit aussi d'etre grand connaisseur; il'etait, mais ce n'etait guere qu'en tableaux flamands. Monsieur de Voyer et Monsieur de Gaignat lui avaient donn6 leur confiance). (Pierre Mariette, Abecedario, Paris, vol. I, 1851-53, p. 386).

(38) This is referred to on p. 7 of the unpaginated inventory of the estate of Jacques Pingat.

(39) See list of expert valuation reports by Remy in the Appendix.

(40) Pierre Remy, Catalogue des objets composant ... Pasquier, Paris, 1755 (Lugt 870).

(41) This handwritten note is on one of the copies of the catalogue of the Pasquier sale at the Bibliotheque Jacques Doucet, Paris.

(42) Colins died on 19 January 1760 (AN, MC, LXXXV, 560, 27 April 1760, attested affidavit). Oddly enough, the document relating to the liquidation of his property reveals how little his estate amounted to: the movable property owned in common was valued at a mere three thousand four hundred livres. Colins had neither a private income nor any real estate (ibid., LXXXV, 560, 28 January 1760). His only son, Jean-Baptiste Gilles, also became a picture dealer and an expert.

(43) 'Il [Gaignat] ne pouvait pas choisir un meilleur connaisseur. Les propos de la baisse jalousie a laquelle le commerce des tableaux expose aujourd'hui plus que tout autre ne firent rien sur l'esprit de M. Gaignat. En suivant d'autres guides, il serait tombe dans des pieges qui l'auraient empeche de suivre sonn inclination'. Preface to the catalogue of the Gaignat sale; see n. 15 above.

(44) In 1724, the picture collection of Philippe, Duc d'Orleans, was the subject of a valuation in six sessions carried out jointly by Pierre Testard, Andre Tramblin, and Pierre Delaunay (AN, X 1 A, 9162, inventory of the estate of Philippe d'Orleans, 16 March 1724 and following). The liquidation of Testard's property mentions the six hundred livres he had received for his valuation of the Regent's pictures (AN, Y, 11069, 18 June 1754).

(45) AN, MC, LXXXIV, 514, 10 October 1781, cash deposit from the sale of the furniture and effects of M Legras.

(46) AN, MC, LXXXII, 319, 3 April 1752, will of Louis Bourbet de Vaux.

(47) Catalogue of the Bourbet de Vaux sale, Paris, June 1752 (Lugt 789). We now know that the expert, whose name does not appear on the first page, was Francois Louis Colins.

(48) G. Brunel, Francois Boucher, Paris, 1986, p. 35.

(49) AN, MC, IV, 574, 10 July 1751.

(50) Pierre Helle and Jean-Baptiste Glomy, Catalogue raisonne des tableaux ... qui composent le cabinet Potier, Paris, 1757, (Lugt 944).

(51) See Appendix; the Potier Collection was dispersed at two sales, one at the beginning of December 1755 (Lugt 892), the other from 28 February to 15 March 1757 (Lugt 944).

(52) AN, MC, XLI, 410, 9 December 1729. Pierre Henry Taumiet lived in Rue St-Dominique, parish of St-Sulpice.

(53) Pierre Helle and Jean-Baptiste Glomy, Catalogue des livres, tableaux, estampes et dessins ... de Gersaint, Paris, 1750 (Lugt 728).

(54) Idem, Catalogue raisonne de toutes les pieces qui forment l' oeuvre de Rembrandt compose par feu Monsieur Gersaint et mis au jour, avec les Augmentations necessaires, Paris, 1752.

(55) 'Pierre Remy, succedant a Helle et Glomy dans l'emploi de fairer des ventes publiques a Paris, connaissait plus les tableaux que les estampes'. K.H. von Heinecken, Dictionnaire des artistes dont nous avons des estampes avec une notice detaillee de leurs ouvrages graves, vol. I, Leipzig, 1778, p. XV.

(56) Krzysztof Pomian, Collectionneurs, amateurs et curieux, Paris, Venise: XVIeme-XVIIIeme siecles, Paris, 1987, p. 176.

(57) The inventory of the property of Glomy, 'former marc-hand mercier', lists only about four hundred livres in moveable property and a small life annuity (AN, MC, vol. LXXXVI, p. 847, 5 July 1786).

(58) AN, MC, XXXI, 173, 22 July 1762, inventory of the estate of Marie Marguerite Gautrot. It is noteworthy that in 1739, on the death of the master painter Nicolas Gautrot, Marie Marguerite's father, the stock of prints was valued by Gersaint (AN, MC, XCVIII, 471, 19 November 1739).

(59) At the time of his marriage to Catherine Louise Leclerc, the daughter of Sebastien II Leclerc, Joullain and his wife had assigned to their son Charles Francois 'the part of their business that relates to frames' (la partie de leur commerce qui concerne les encadrages) (AN, MC, XCVIII, 538, 24 April 1757).

(60) ... 'il est un homme fort honnete et prudent'. AN, MC, XXXI, 142, 29 November 1749 (will) and 5 December 1749 (inventory of the estate of Pierre Testard).

(61) The purchase of the shop by Marie Rigaud is specified in the clauses of Gersaint's first marriage contract (see n. 7 above). The family relationship with Antoine Dieu explains the presence of twenty-five or so of that painter's pictures with the Godefroys' in 1762.

(62) ... 'remis en etat les tableaux de M. le Baron [Crozat] de Thiers au nombre de 400'. See n. 32 above.

(63) His collection of works of art was the subject of an expert valuation by Pierre Testard who gave attributions as well as the dimensions for almost all the pictures in the collection. Some were bought for the collection of Louis XV.

(64) AN, MC, XXIV, 782, 29 November 1762.

(65) Remy conducted or jointly conducted the sales of the Marquis de Villette on 8 April 1765 (Lugt 1448), of Crozat de Thiers from 26 February to 27 March 1772 (Lugt 2004), of the Duc de Bouillon that same year (Lugt 2093), of the Duc de Grammont on 16 January 1775 (Lugt 2348) and of Dange on 2 February 1778. With regard to the Duc de Chaulnes, on the one hand his name appeared among Remy's papers on his death, and on the other his collection of curiosities was valued by Victoire Le Maignan, who was Remy's cousin by marriage (AN, MC, XXIII, 704, 10 October 1769).

(66) AN, MC, XXIV, 784, April 1763.

(67) Luc-Vincent Thiery, Guide des amateurs et des etrangers voyageurs a Paris ..., 2 vols., Paris, 1787-88.

(68) Jean-Baptiste Hutin, the son of Charles-Francois Hutin, painter to the king of Poland, was also a painter. On the death of his mother, Anne Auguste Herault, he called on Pierre Remy to give an expert valuation of the items in his father's studio (see Appendix).

(69) Remy conducted the Pompadour sale on 28 April 1766 (Lugt 1530), Jean de Jullienne did so from 30 March to 22 May 1767 (Lugt 1603), and La Live de Jully from 2 to 14 May 1770 (Lugt 1838).

(70) AN, MC, L, 265, 31 August 1733; moreover, the valuation of the pictures was conducted by Godefroy and the maitre peintre Claude Lemaitre; for which, see Wildenstein, op. cit., p. 104.

(71) Painting no. 21 in the Pasquier inventory (see Appendix), estimated at one hundred and twenty livres: it reappears with the same number at the time of the sale. It was bought by Pierre Remy for England.

(72) The picture was inventoried as no. 34, and valued at three hundred livres (AN, MC, LXXXII, 319, 19 April 1752).

(73) The Cantarini and the pseudo-Guido Reni are nos. 30 and 31 in the Pasquier inventory (see Appendix); the former was valued at sixteen hundred livres, the latter at one thousand livres; they reappear with the same numbers at the sale, where they were both bought for a total of six thousand and two livres by Ledoux.

(74) The picture was reattributed by Frederic Villot, curator of paintings at the Louvre in the mid-nineteenth century; cited in S. Loire, Ecole italienne, XVIIme siecle: 1. Bologne, Pads, 1996, pp. 106-109.

(75) ... 'un paysage de Guillerot dans la maniere de Bourdon'. Picture inventoried as no. 20 of the Schovaerdts Collection in 1773 (see Appendix).

(76) Picture inventoried as no. 25 of the Villette Collection in 1765 (see Appendix).

(77) Pictures inventoried as no. 5 of the collection of Catherine Sarocold in 1766 (see Appendix).

(78) Picture inventoried as no. 7 of the collection of Catherine Sarocold in 1766 (see Appendix).

(79) ... 'deux faux Teniers, dont un assez bien'. Picture inventoried as no. 49 in the inventory of the collection of Marie Moreau (see Appendix).

(80) AN, MC, XXIV, 750, 7 August 1756.

(81) See Appendix.

(82) Vente a l'amiable. Catalogue d'une collection de tableaux ..., Araignon, Paris, 1751; no. 36: 'a picture by the same artist [Claude Lorrain] depicting a Landscape and Seascape at midday; the figures a Rape of Europa with many animals in the background, same size as the previous one [4 pieds long by 3 pieds wide]' (un tableau du meme [Claude Lorrain] representant Paysage et Marine qui est l'heure de midi; les figures un Enlevement d'Europe avec bien des animaux dans le fond, meme jgrandeur que le precedent [4 pieds de long sur 3 pieds de large]). 'Good' is written in the margin of the copy of this sale catalogue in the Bibliotheque Jacques Doucet, Paris.

(83) Ibid., no. 30: 'By the same artist [Domenico Fetti]: Joseph receiving his brothers' gifts and The Prodigal Son' (Du meme [Domenico Fetti]: Joseph qui recoit les presents de ses freres et L'Enfant Prodigue), 'Copy' is written in the margin of the copy of this sale catalogue in the Bibliotheque Jacques Doucet, Paris.

(84) Both pictures, now regarded as being workshop copies, are in the Musee des Beaux-Arts, Caen.

(85) Ibid., no. 12, 'Guercino: Tancred and Erminia, one of this master's finest works, 7 pieds high by 9 pieds wide; it comes from the Prince de Carignan's sale' (Guerchin: Tancrede et Herminie, un des plus beaux de ce maitre, de 7 pieds de haut sur 9 pieds de large; vient de la vente du prince de Carignan). 'Good' is written in the margin of the copy of this sale catalogue in the Bibliotheque Jacques Doucet, Paris.

(86) Ibid., vol. XXXVIII, p. 767, 1 Nivose, Year VI (11 January 1798).

Francois Marandet obtained his master's degree on Bon Boullogne from the Sorbonne, Paris, and has published various articles on European eighteenth-century artists.

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Author:	Marandet, Francois
Publication:	Apollo
Geographic Code:	4EUFR
Date:	Aug 1, 2003
Words:	10683
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