Photo Giraudon.
The Virgin of the Maison d’Orléans.
By Raphael.
Musée Condé.
When the Duc d’Aumale returned to Chantilly after an absence of twenty years, he at once formed as we have seen a plan for erecting a museum upon the ruins of the old Château, with the further intention of presenting the mansion with all its contents to the French nation. Many years, however, elapsed before the building was complete and ready to receive all the treasures which it was destined to hold; but meanwhile the Duke continued to increase the collection by munificent and judicious purchases.
At the Faure Sale in 1873, Delacroix’s dramatic composition of The Two Foscari was acquired; in 1877 there were added the four Tanagra figures which now adorn the case wherein the Minerva is enshrined; and an exquisite example of Italian enamel, representing Apollo guiding the Chariot of the Sun (attributed to Benvenuto Cellini), was bought from M. Cadard for 6,000 francs.
In 1876 a very important acquisition was made in the shape of a collection of French portraits, once in the possession of Gaignières but subsequently belonging to Alexandre Lenoir, from whom it had passed into England and become the property of the then Duke of Sutherland. This collection, which was at Stafford House until the Duc d’Aumale acquired it, consists of no less than 69 painted portraits, 148 drawings in coloured chalk and several pastels. Amongst the most interesting of these portraits are: Francis I (painted about 1515), his sister, Marguerite d’Angoulême, and her husband, Henri d’Albret, King of Navarre; Jeanne d’Albret; Admiral de Coligny, and his brother the Cardinal; Catherine de Medicis, Diane de Poitiers, Charles IX, Henri III, the Duc d’Alençon, and the Duc de Nemours (all attributed to François Clouet); Marguerite de France, and Madame de Lansac (attributed to Corneille de Lyon); Philippe de Clève, Sieur de Ravenstein; Jean de Bugenhagen (attributed to Holbein); Catherine de Bora, the wife of Luther; Charles V; the Count and Countess Hornes; Henri IV (by Pourbus), and an attractive likeness of his daughter Elizabeth, Queen of Spain; Gabrielle d’Estrées au bain; the Duc de Retz; the Duc d’Aumont on horseback; Sully and Charost (by Quesnel); George I; several portraits by Mignard, among them a magnificent likeness of Molière, another of Mazarin, and two pastels representing Colbert and Quinault. From the same collection are the portraits of Pope Benedict XIV by Subleyras and of Marie Antoinette as Hebe by Drouais.
Another portrait which attracts much notice is that of Antoine de Bourgogne, the Grand Bâtard, the second of the nineteen illegitimate sons of Philippe le Bon. This painting was presented to the Duc d’Aumale by the Duke of Sutherland. It is an exquisite work of art which has been variously attributed to Memling, to Roger van der Weyden, and to Ugo van der Goes, but it is to the last-named artist that it can be assigned with greater probability. The Grand Bâtard[21] wears the Order of the Golden Fleece instituted by his father at Bruges in 1430, and appears to be about forty years of age, the period of life when he gained his great victory over the Moors at Ceuta. He was not only a valiant warrior, but also an arduous bibliophile and collector. His Château of La Roche contained many interesting illuminated manuscripts now dispersed, and of these the Froissart at Breslau is amongst the most celebrated. Like all those that belonged to him, it bears his autograph “ob de Bourgogne” “ob” being an abbreviation of the Greek word ὁβαλὁς, which means bâtard.[22]
The drawings of this Sutherland Collection, especially those belonging to the sixteenth century, are less important, many of them appearing to be copies by inferior hands; those, however, of the seventeenth century by Quesnel and Dumoustier are first-rate. Among the portraits in pastel may be noted likenesses of Madame de Montespan, Louis XIII, Gaston d’Orléans, Louis de Haros, and an interesting portrait of Watteau designed by Boucher after an original by Watteau himself.