The Cleveland Museum of Art

Collection Online as of April 23, 2024

Portrait of Jean-Gabriel du Theil at the Signing of the Treaty of Vienna

1738–40

Jacques André Joseph Aved

(French, 1702–1766)

France, 18th century

oil on canvas

Framed: 153.5 x 121.5 x 13.5 cm (60 7/16 x 47 13/16 x 5 5/16 in.); Unframed: 124.5 x 92.4 cm (49 x 36 3/8 in.)

John L. Severance Fund 1964.89

Location: 216B French and German

Did You Know?

Smoke rising from the candle suggests that du Theil has just added his molten wax seal to the document before him.

Description

As secretary of foreign affairs for Louis XV of France, Jean-Gabriel du Theil (1685–1755) helped negotiate the 1738 Treaty of Vienna, which ceded the Duchy of Lorraine to France. The seal du Theil holds in his hand, the silver-gilt writing set, and the thick document all allude to these negotiations, while the wisp of smoke rising from the candle used to melt the sealing wax suggests that the treaty has only just concluded. Du Thiel’s relaxed posture conveys calm assurance, but his sharp gaze is that of a shrewd negotiator. A costume encrusted with gold embroidery and (just visible at his chest) the pink ribbon and star of the royal Order of Saint Lazarus, are visible manifestations of du Theil’s prestigious position.

by 1922
Edouard Kann [1873-1927], Paris, France
Until 1956?
Possibly Madame Delaney, Paris, France
Dec. 10, 1956
(Sale: Hôtel Drouot, Dec. 10, 1956, lot J, sold to Wildenstein & Co.)
1956-1964
(Wildenstein & Co., New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)
1964-
The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio
Provenance Footnotes
1 The circumstances of Edouard's acquisition of the Aved painting are not known. The nephew of Rodolphe Kann and the son of Maurice Kann, both prominent collectors, Edouard does not appear to have inherited the painting from either.
2 1The original source for the inclusion of Delaney in this provenance is unknown. The Aved catalogue raisonné has several paintings with "Delaunay" in their provenances, suggesting the possibility that this name have at some point been incorrectly recorded as “Delaney.” However, a Tiepolo painting in the Samuel Kress Collection at the National Gallery (1952.5.78) contains Edouard Kann in its provenance followed by Mme. D[elaney], indicating that “Delaney” is, in fact, the correct name. A 1933 Galerie Charpentier sale in which the Tiepolo appears lists the owner as “Mme. D,” while Paintings and Sculpture from the Kress Collection (1951) identifies Madame Delaney as the owner following Kann. The original source connecting Mme. Delaney to the Tiepolo is unknown. That the Tiepolo was previously owned by Edouard Kann and then by Delaney does give credence to the inclusion of Delaney following Kann in the Aved provenance.
3 1 In addition to the Aved painting, Wildenstein also purchased Rigaud's Portrait of Cardinal Guillaume Dubois (CMA 1967.17) at this sale. Madame Delaney may be one of the “divers amateurs” (various private collectors) whose collection comprised this sale, although this is unconfirmed.
Notice historique er biographique sur J.-G. de la Porte du Theil, ambassadeur du roi Louis XV.
Guiffrey, Jules Marie Joseph. Collection des livrets des anciennes expositions depuis 1673 jusqu'en 1800. 44 vols in 3. Paris: Liepmannssohn et Dufour, 1869-1873. Mentioned: vol. 7 (1), 24.
Wildenstein, Georges. Le peintre Aved, sa vie et son oeuvre 1702-1766. 2 vols. Paris: Les Beaux-arts, édition d'études et de documents, 1922. Mentioned: vol. 1, 51, 53-55, 56, 72, 118, 121; vol. 2, no. 47 and reproduced opp. p. 66
Wildenstein, Georges. Le peintre Aved, sa vie et son oeuvre 1702-1766. Paris: Les Beaux-arts, édition d'études et de documents, 1922.
Claude, Pierre. "Un grand realiste Jacques Aved," La Renaissance de l'Art V no. 6 (June 1922), 374-381. Mentioned and reproduced: 376 gallica.bnf.fr
Boucher, Francois. Review of Georges Wildenstein, Le Peintre Aved, sa vie et son oeuvre, in Gazette des Beaux-Arts VI, no. 1 (1922), 255-256, pl. opp. 254. Mentioned: 255; Reproduced: opposite254 gallica.bnf.fr
Hôtel Drouot. Tableaux anciens…Par ou attribués à: J. Aved – Moreau L’Ainé – A. van der Neer – H. Rigaud et des écoles anglaise, française et hollandaise appartenant à divers amateurs. Dec. 10, 1956.
Vodo, Nina Nikolaevna. "Neopublikovannyj portret dramaturga Krebijona raboty Aveda [An unpublished portrait of the playwright Crébillon by Aved]." Trudy Gosudarstvennogo Muzeja Izobrazitel'nych Iskusstv Imeni A.S. Puškina [Travaux du Museé Pouchkine des Beaux-Arts] (1960), 247-260. Mentioned: 256; Reproduced: 254
Saisselin, Rémy G. Style, Truth, and the Portrait. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1963. Mentioned and reproduced: cat. no. 48
"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, April - June 1964." The Art Quarterly 27 (1964):
Mentioned and reproduced: 383
"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, April - June 1964." The Art Quarterly 27 (1964).
Reproduced: 383
Francis, Henry S. "Two Portraits by Aved and Gros." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 51, no. 8 (1964): 196-205. www.jstor.org
Frankfurter, Alfred. "Museum Evaluations, l: Cleveland." Art News 63 (December 1964): 26-29, 58-61. Reproduced: 27; Mentioned: 58-59.
"La Chronique des Arts." Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, vol. 65 (February 1965): suppl.
Reproduced: 45, no. 190
Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1966. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1966. Reproduced: p. 134 archive.org
Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1969. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1969. Reproduced: p. 134 archive.org
Talbot, William S. "Comte De Richebourg le Toureil." The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 58, no. 1 (1971): 2-9 Mentioned and reproduced: 3, fig. 3 www.jstor.org
Rosenberg, Pierre, in The Age of Louis XV: French Painting 1710-1774. Exh. cat.Toledo, OH: Toledo Museum of Art, 1975. Mentioned: 13, 19 cat. 2; Reproduced: pl. 58
Handbook of the Cleveland Museum of Art/1978. Cleveland, OH: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1978. Reproduced: p. 177 archive.org
"Berichte:Bilder vom Menschen in der Kunst des Abendlandes."
Die Kunst (July 1980):
Reproduced: p. 406
Bilder vom Menschen in der Kunst des Abendlandes: Jubiläumsausstellung der Preussischen Museen Berlin 1830-1980 . Exh. cat. Berlin: Staatliche Museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz, 1980. Mentioned: 187-188(cat. no. 43); Reproduced:color pl. 16.
Conisbee, Philip. Painting in Eighteenth-Century France. Oxford, England: Phaidon Press, 1981. Mentioned: 124-125; Reproduced: 128, fig. 102
Rosenfeld, Myra Nan. Largillierre and the Eighteenth-Century Portrait. Montréal, Québec, Canada: Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, 1981. Mentioned and Reproduced: 368-36, cat. no. 779
The Cleveland Museum of Art: Catalogue of Paintings. Part 3: European Paintings of the 16th, 17th, and 18th Centuries. Cleveland: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1982. Mentioned: p. 49-51; Reproduced: p. 50
Vincent, Margaret. A Delicate Art: Flemish Lace, 1700-1940: an Exhibition Selected from the Collection of the Allentown Art Museum. Exh. cat. Allentown, PA: Allentown Art Museum, 1986. Reproduced: 12, fig. 3
Lespes, Michelle. 2003 "Aved, Jacques(-André-Joseph)." Grove Art Online. Mentioned www.oxfordartonline.com
Lespes, Michelle. "Le peintre Aved et la cour de Stanislas." Pays Lorrain 101 (September 2005): 167-176. Mentioned and reproduced: 169
Heyen, E.V. "Councillors and Officials in the Early Modern Period." Yearbook of European Administrative History no. 19 (2007). p. 240
Wilson, Gillian, Charissa Bremer-David, and Jeffrey Weaver. French Furniture and Gilt Bronzes: Baroque and Régence: Catalogue of the J. Paul Getty Museum Collection. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2008. Mentioned and reproduced: 358, fig. 43-e.
Clark, Alvin L., ed. Tradition & Transitions: Eighteenth-century French Art from the Horvitz Collection. [Boston, Massachusetts]: The Horvitz Collection, [2017]. Reproduced: p. 434, fig. 1
Cock-Starkey, Claire. A Museum Miscellany. Oxford: Bodleian Library, 2019. Mentioned: P. 8
Heyen, Erk Volkmar. Verwaltete Welten: Mensch, Gemeinwesen und Amt in der europäischen Malerei. 2013. p. 249, fig. 7
Nicolas de Largillierre and the Role of the Portrait in 18th Century France. Montréal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Quebec, Canada (organizer) (September 19-November 15, 1981).
Nicolas de Largillierre and the Role of the Portrait in 18th-Century France. The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Quebec, Canada (September 19 - November 15, 1981), cat. no. 77.
Das Meschenbuild in der europäischen Kunst (Images of Man in Western Art). Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Berlin, Germany (July 5-September 28, 1980).
Bilder vom Menschen in der Kunst des Abendlandes. Berlin, Nationalgalerie, Staatliche museen Preussischer Kulturbesitz (July 5 - September 28, 1980), cat. no. 43.
The Age of Louis XV: French Painting, 1710 - 1774. The Toledo Museum of Art (organizer) (October 26-December 7, 1975); The Art Institute of Chicago (January 10-February 22, 1976); National Gallery of Canada (March 21-May 2, 1976).
The Age of Louis XV, French Painting 1710-1774. Toledo Museum of Art (October 26-December 7, 1975); Art Institute of Chicago (January 10-February 22, 1976); Ottawa, National Gallery of Canada (March 21-May 2, 1976), cat. no. 2.
Paris, Salon, 1740, cat. no. 85 ("Un Tableau représentant M. du Theil, Secretaire du Cabinet du Roy, premier Commis des Affaires étrangères, ci-devant Ministre & Plénipotentiaire de Sa Majeste auprès de l'Empereur, au moment qu'il vient de signer un des Actes de la dernière Pacification.")
Year in Review (1964). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (December 8, 1964-January 31, 1965).
Style, Truth, and the Portrait. Cleveland Museum of Art (October 1 - November 10, 1963), cat. no. 48.
{{cite web|title=Portrait of Jean-Gabriel du Theil at the Signing of the Treaty of Vienna|url=false|author=Jacques André Joseph Aved|year=1738–40|access-date=23 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

Source URL:

https://www.clevelandart.org/art/1964.89