I've recently discovered Europeana, a great site for text, videos, and images. It's especially great for portraits. Here, for example, are some portraits of Athénaïs de Montespan, some of which I've never seen before:
This one above is credited to Ernest and Mignard. One can see how plump she has become. Here is another by Mignard with a similar theme:
Athénaïs is often portrayed with her children, no doubt to secure her link to the King. This is another portrait by Mignard:
And another:
And this one by Charles de La Fosse:
This image by Pierre Gobert is presumed to be of her, and I suspect it likely so:
Her lounging pose was unusual for the time; comfort was a new concept. Here again is a striking study by Nicolas Mignard:
This image of Athénaïs at her chateau at Clagny (Versailles now) is curious: bare legs!
This image, artist unknown (and previously thought to portray Louise de la Vallière) shows a younger Athénaïs with droopy eyes. Might this have been considered the come-hither look?
Here is another, likely even younger portrait, showing her unusual and slightly protruding eyes.
Here is a fashon plate, dated 1694. I doubt very much that Athénaïs would have been so slender at that time.
I could easily be on this site all day.
Sandra Gulland
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Athénaïs is often portrayed with her children, no doubt to secure her link to the King. This is another portrait by Mignard:
And another:
And this one by Charles de La Fosse:
This image by Pierre Gobert is presumed to be of her, and I suspect it likely so:
Her lounging pose was unusual for the time; comfort was a new concept. Here again is a striking study by Nicolas Mignard:
This image of Athénaïs at her chateau at Clagny (Versailles now) is curious: bare legs!
This image, artist unknown (and previously thought to portray Louise de la Vallière) shows a younger Athénaïs with droopy eyes. Might this have been considered the come-hither look?
Here is another, likely even younger portrait, showing her unusual and slightly protruding eyes.
Here is a fashon plate, dated 1694. I doubt very much that Athénaïs would have been so slender at that time.
Sandra Gulland
*****
Website: http://www.sandragulland.com/
Blog: http://sandragulland.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://bit.ly/sgullandFacebook
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Sandra_Gulland
Tumblr: http://sandragulland.tumblr.com/
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12 comments:
Sandra, the last I would swear, is either Angelique De Fontanges or it's the young Duchesse De Bourgoine. At that date, Anthenaise was not slender and beautiful!
Ooh, I love sites like this! Thanks so much for sharing, Sandra.
One caveat, though: the first couple of names I tried came up with results that included incorrect attributions (ie, right painter, but wrong sitter), so I guess we must take our pictures with a grain of skeptical salt. *g*
No doubts about Athenais, though. Very cool to see such a selection!
Good warning, Susan!
Fiz, I thought the same, particularly because of the hairstyle.
Fun to see. I had pictured her vampier!
I know, Sue, but those lounging images with so much ankle showing. (Shocking!) And without stays? Hummmm.
Another fantastic blog post, Sandra. I've been writing an article about hunting down Marie Antoinette's treasures and it makes me wonder, have you ever found one of Madame de Montespan's treasures (gown, book, jewels, etc)?
Susan,
I think Athenais did appear quite vampy in real life. Her contemporaries said she was not only beautiful and voluptuous (something all of us on this website know), but described her look as being somewhat insolent and haughty, with sarcastic eyes and a bit of a sneer on her pretty lips. That, to me, suggests exactly the quality you expected to see in these portraits but didn't.
The fact is, almost none of the paintings depicting Athenais -- either in Sandra's post or elsewhere on the Internet -- show this arrogant/sexy quality, which leads me to believe she had some of the worst portraitists, from the point of view of capturing her spirit, of any historical figure I can think of.
None of her portraits, for that matter, look very much like any of the others. Body-wise, this could be explained by the huge weight fluctuations that frustrated her throughout her career as mistress. Face-wise, however, she might simply have had such a unique appearance that she was a difficult subject to depict with any consistency. (Mozart, oddly enough, is another historical figure about whom this is said, which is why his portraits seem so inconsistent.)
The only three Montespan portraits, in my own opinion, that do justice to her famously "haughty" appearance can be seen by following the provided links. As Sandra mentioned in her original post, its interesting to note how well-fed Athenais seems in some of them.
http://people.ucalgary.ca/~mamaes/Montespan.jpg
http://www.culture.gouv.fr/Wave/image/joconde/0047/m505209_oa1487recto_p.jpg
http://www.istockphoto.com/file_thumbview_approve/3802401/2/istockphoto_3802401-de-montespan.jpg
Leah, I haven't, except for things that appear in museum shows. What an interesting article!
Jordan, very good observation. I see what you mean in the images you posted. (I'll blog on these when I get a chance.) I didn't know you knew Madame de Montespan so well. How did this come about?
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