(1745-1818)
The Marquis de Pons reviewing the Dauphiné infantry regiment
Oil on canvas
64,5 x 80,3 cm / framed: 80,5 x 94,5 cm
Dates lower right 1772
Inscribed on the back of the frame “ARMAND AUGUSTIN DE PONS”
Provenance : Private collection, Rouen
The Pons family, now extinct, was one of the most distinguished in the kingdom in the 18th century, with some members having been known for their crusades and others having fought during the Hundred Years’ War under du Guesclin. Originally from Saintonge, they were sometimes called «kings of Guyenne», so much their influence and wealth were great (their jurisdiction extended over 250 fiefs).
Charles-Armand Augustin had taken up the arms career, first serving with the Musketeers as second lieutenant and then captain, before being appointed colonel of the Régiment d’infanterie du Dauphiné in 1770, a unit he later led from 1781 to 1788.
This regiment, originally created in 1629, served during this period of relative military lull in Corsica, when attached to France, then stationed in the Sout of France, provided a detachment for the garrison of ships during the American wars and was stationed in the country of Gex, in 1782, during the Geneva troubles.
Remaining loyal to the king, the Vicomte de Pons took part in various counter-revolutionary ventures. With Sombreuil, the baron de Batz, a Montmorency-Laval, and the marquis de La Guiche, they met in the hermitage of the castle of Bagnolet, in Charonne. Batz remained famous for having attempted to remove the king’s person on the way to the scaffold, on January 21, 1793.
Pons could not escape the terror. Arrested for «conjuration of the foreigner», imprisoned in Sainte-Pélagie, he died guillotined on 17 June 1794, a few weeks before the fall of Robespierre, place de la Révolution (the former place Louis XV, the present place de la Concorde).
The extraordinarily luxurious and refined character of the representation of the Vicomte de Pons, passing through the troops of the Royal Dauphiné, well recognizable by their green banner with white cross, evokes wonderfully the sophistication of the society of the Ancien Régime. The crimson saddle mat with trimmings, the white horse’s braids and ribbons, probably a Lipizzan, the vicomte’s elegance whose livery matches the horse’s robe, give this military scene a unique charm.
Trained in the studio of Jean-Jacques Bachelier, Bertaux, a rare artist whose memory has been preserved by some great pieces on historical subjects such as The Taking of the Tuileries Palace (fig. 4), 1793, now kept at the Palace of Versailles, made a specialty of hunting and venery paintings.
Fulfilling the same task as Jean-François Perdrix (1746-1809) with the prince of Condé, Bertaux was in fact commissioned by the Duke Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, a passionate veneur, to perform large compositions describing with force details of memorable hunts.
In our canvas, the artist mixes the picturesque costumes and crews with a real concern for accuracy in the representation of figures, like a miniaturist.
One can only think of Carmontelle (1717-1806), the watercolorist and great ordonnateur of the feasts of the Duke of Orleans, of which several hundred drawings are kept in Chantilly and constitute a unique repertoire of this brilliant society that some members of the de Pons family attended. The same charm, the same spirit, the same devotion to the profile representations are found in the corpus of the two artists, who can be imagined to have crossed paths in the alleys of the Royal Palace…
