Oil on panel study of a young girl with a cat, by François-Hubert Drouais, school of François-Hubert Drouais, or after François-Hubert Drouais. Framed size is 17 inches high x 15 1/2 inches wide. Markings in lower left may be the remains of a signature and date reading "D" and "17_3".



It appears to be a sketch, more like Drouais's drawings than his formal portraits for the court. The composition is identical to the painting shown below, but it appears to be a different girl. The panel and paint are very old. Frame is modern

Drouais (1727-1775), premier court painter to Louis XV, was particularly well-known for his child subjects. In 1756 he was summoned to Versailles to paint portraits of the Dauphin's 2 infant sons. His oeuvre includes numerous titled and aristocratic child subjects, often portrayed as miniature adults or in theatrical costumes. Drouais often used the same fashionable compositions, props, poses, and costumes for more than one subject.

RESEARCH & CONCLUSIONS

François-Hubert Drouais exhibited a bust length portrait of a young girl with a cat, dressed in white with a hooded rose colored cloak, in the Salon of 1763. Diderot reviewed the work at the time, praising it highly and also declaring that it was a portrait of Amelie Silvestre, daughter of the head of the Academie Royale and court painter to the King of Poland. He also stated that this painting was the subject of one of a pair of Gobelins tapestries created for Mme. Pompadour by Cozette in 1764, which passed to her brother the Marquis de Marigny after her death.




François-Hubert Drouais,
painting for Salon of 1763


Gobelins tapestry 1764
by Cozette
Although Mme Pompadour commissioned many Gobelins tapestries, including a large selection with child subjects, this pair of tapestries was not mentioned in the Edith Standen's 1993 comprehensive study of Mme Pompadour's Gobelins tapestries.

In 1912 Drouais's painting Young Girl with Cat is reviewed in the catalogue of the estate of Mme Roussel at Galerie George Petit in Paris.

M. Petit challenges the original identification of the subject, saying that the original Gobelin tapestries which are now in the Musee de Tours were actually created for the noble family of Chanteloupe, and little girl identified as the Duchess of Gramont, of that family, when they were given to the museum by the Chantaloupe.

M. Petit also refers to another possible subject for the painting, Marie Dore, the then-sixteen year old sister-in-law or step-sister of Drouais.

The lack of artificiality in the work, as well as a certain resemblance of the subject to a sketch of Mme Drouais that this a quick study done of a close family member, perhaps to work out compositional details before he began the portrait of the young Duchess of Gramont.