Style of Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe, Landscape Scene, early to mid-1800s

Chicago:

Blythe Sobol, “Style of Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe, Landscape Scene, early to mid-1800s,” catalogue entry in Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan, The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, vol. 1, ed. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan (Kansas City, MO: Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024), https://doi.org/10.37764/8322.5.2244.

MLA:

Sobol, Blythe. “Style of Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe, Landscape Scene, early to mid-1800s,” catalogue entry. Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, Blythe Sobol, and Maggie Keenan. The Starr Collection of Portrait Miniatures, 1500–1850: The Collections of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, edited by Aimee Marcereau DeGalan, vol. 1, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, 2024. doi: 10.37764/8322.5.2244.

This lively country landscape was painted on a tiny piece of vellum. The scene features a stone bridge spanning an undulating river with rolling hills in the distance. To the left are a small cottage and the spires of a church, while across the stream to the right is a château with a peaked terracotta roof. The scene is dotted with several figures. Two travelers at left prepare to cross the bridge, with another person on horseback already halfway across. Several people frolic in the water, including two nude bathers and two others who appear to be doing laundry.

The nostalgic, bucolic imagery would have appealed to an aristocratic French clientele that was becoming increasingly tied to Paris and its urban landscapes. The miniatures created by the Van Blarenberghe family of painters were particularly prized for their fastidiously rendered landscapes, often mounted on tiny, exquisite boxes for snuff and other accoutrements.¹ However, this particular miniature demonstrates tentative brushwork and an awkward use of perspective, which contrasts with the typical meticulous precision displayed by Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe. These factors raise questions about the authenticity of this specific work.² During the early to mid-nineteenth century, the demand for such miniature countryside scenes far exceeded their availability, leading to a rampant market for fakes and copies. This example, in particular, bears a false signature and date, likely added to increase its value.³

Notes

1. It is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish between the work of Louis Nicolas van Blarenberghe and his son, Henri Joseph van Blarenberghe (1750–1826). This miniature is designated as “style of” Louis Nicolas due to the (erroneous) inscribed date and the use of his name in the false inscription. On the Van Blarenberghe family and problems of attribution, see Serge Grandjean, Kirsten Aschengreen Piacenti, Charles Truman, and Anthony Blunt, Gold Boxes and Miniatures of the Eighteenth Century: The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor (Paris: Office du Livre, 1975), 232–49.

2. We are grateful to Bernd Pappe, who examined this miniature and offered his insight on its date and attribution during a July 23–25, 2023, visit. Notes in NAMA curatorial object files.

3. Bernd Pappe, July 23–25, 2023, notes in NAMA curatorial files.

Mr. John W. (1905–2000) and Mrs. Martha Jane (1906–2011) Starr, Kansas City, MO, by 1958;

Their gift to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 1958.

The Starr Foundation Collection of Miniatures, The Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto, December 8, 1972–January 14, 1973, no cat., no. 235, as Landscape Scene.

Ross E. Taggart, ed., Handbook of the Collections in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 4th ed. (Kansas City, MO: William Rockhill Nelson Gallery of Art and Mary Atkins Museum of Fine Arts, 1959), 265, as Landscape.

Ross E. Taggart, The Starr Collection of Miniatures in the William Rockhill Nelson Gallery (Kansas City, MO: Nelson Gallery-Atkins Museum, 1971), no. 235, p. 77, (repro.), as Landscape Scene.