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Lot 187

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Raphael Bouquet (fl.1894-1920) A group of 5 pastel

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including 2 larger portraits, Mlle de Chastagner de Lagrange, and an unknown gentleman, pastel on a blue ground on cream laid paper and pastel on dark grey paper, respectively, the former signed, dated 1920 and inscribed with the artist's Saint Quentin address, 45 bd Gambetta, at left sheet edge, each 39 x 31cm (15 3/8 x 12 1/4 in); and 3 smaller portraits of Jean Le Rond d'Alembert, Marie Anne Botot known as Mlle Dangeville, and Marie Justine Benoît Cabaret du Ronceroy known as Mme Favart, all pastel on a blue or green ground on cream laid paper, each 31 x 24cm (12 1/4 x 9 1/2 in); all unframed (5)

***Raphael Bouquet is best known for his series of skilled copies of the pastel portraits by Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704-1788) in the Musée Antoine Lécuyer at Saint Quentin, the town to where Bouquet moved his studio in 1894. A further eight copies by Bouquet after La Tour pastels from the group at Saint-Quentin are known. However they were probably not actually executed at Saint-Quentin, as the pastels were seized by the Germans at the start of 1917 and transferred to Maubeuge. They were recuperated in 1919, but since the museum at Saint-Quentin was ruined, they were sent to Paris where they remained, in the Orangerie des Tuileries, until 1932. The dated example here certainly fits in with this period. The original La Tour pastels are all reproduced in Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, London, 2006; online edition at pastellists.com..

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