Currently not on view
Portrait of Louis-Alexandre Marolles,
1841
Jean-François Millet, 1814–1875; born Gruchy, France; died Barbizon, France
x1991-185
An exceptional draftsman with an affinity for pastels, Millet—who would become a renowned naturalist—supported himself in the 1840s as a portrait painter. According to John W. Mollett’s 1890 book The Painters of Barbizon, while he was still in his twenties, Millet shared a small studio in Paris with Louis-Alexandre Marolles, the subject of this portrait. Perpetually short of funds, Marolles apparently persuaded Millet to make lighthearted pastels executed in the style of Boucher and Watteau, which they could sell for twenty francs each. Whether or not the scheme ever proved profitable, Millet’s portrait of his friend is skillfully drawn in an eighteenth-century Rococo manner. A drawing of a faun is barely discernible on an unfinished canvas in the background of this pastel.
Information
Title
Portrait of Louis-Alexandre Marolles
Dates
1841
Maker
Medium
Pastel
Dimensions
60 × 45 cm (23 5/8 × 17 11/16 in.)
frame: 70.2 × 54.1 × 4.6 cm (27 5/8 × 21 5/16 × 1 13/16 in.)
Credit Line
Gift of Joseph F. McCrindle
Object Number
x1991-185
Signatures
Signed and dated, lower right: Millet. 1841
Culture
Type
Materials
Mme. Bouchez, Daughter of Louis-Alexandre Marolles;
Purchased by Meyer Goodfriend from the Galerie Barbazanges, Paris;
January 4, 1923, Sold at Meye Goodfriend auction, American Art Galleries, New York, no. 99;
Purchased by Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Feder Fuller;
Their grandson, Mr. Joseph F. McCrindle;
Gifted to the Princeton University Art Museum
- Alfred Sensier, La vie et l’oeuvre de J.-F. Millet, (Paris: A. Quintin, 1881)., p. 71
- Illustrated catalogue of the valuable pictures by the Barbizon masters, their contemporaries the French impressionists and Modern French painters: forming the private collection of the connoisseur Mr. Meyer Goodfriend, (New York: American Art Association, 1923)., no. 99 (illus.)
- Lucien Lepoittevin, Jean-François Millet, portraitiste: essai et catalogue, (Paris: L. Laget, 1971). , no. 55 (illus.)
- "Acquisitions of the Art Museum 1991," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University 51, no. 1 (1992): p. 22-78., p. 51
