Guide to The Orléans Collection

ON VIEW October 26, 2018 – January 27, 2019 at

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Rembrandt. Poussin. Rubens. Veronese.

Vasari. These are just a few of the extraordinary artists whose paintings will be on view at the New Orleans Museum of Art (NOMA) in the once-in-a-lifetime exhibition, The Orléans Collection. In honor of the threehundredth anniversary of the founding of the city of New Orleans, NOMA has reunited selections from one of the most significant collections in European art history, assembled by our city’s namesake: Philippe II, Duke of Orléans (1674–1723), Regent of France. This culminating event for the 2018 Tricentennial celebrates this extraordinary collector.

The nephew of Louis XIV (“The Sun King”), Philippe expected to become king but a direct heir was born in the final years of his uncle’s reign. Five-year-old Louis XV inherited the throne in 1715, requiring Philippe to serve as Regent of France for eight years until the young king came of age. The Duke was an avid patron of the arts; in addition to his patronage of music and theater, he owned nearly 800 paintings,

many of which he displayed thoughtfully and strategically in his Parisian residence, the Palais-Royal. In the 1790s, decades after his death, his descendants sold the collection in a series of sales in London. The public display of the collection was instrumental in the formation of Europe’s earliest public art museums. The dispersal provoked a discussion that continues today, surrounding the idea that art should be held in the public trust for the benefit of future generations.

During the Duke’s guardianship, a recently founded city in the New World was named for him, La Nouvelle-Orléans. More than three centuries later, in what became this city’s encyclopedic art museum, this historic occasion will be celebrated by bringing together nearly forty paintings from twenty-five lending institutions to tell the story of this renowned collection for the first time since its dispersal. We look forward to welcoming you to this unique exhibition, one that celebrates a passion for art across the centuries.

—SUSAN M. TAYLOR, The Montine McDaniel Freeman Director, New Orleans Museum of Art

FAR LEFT Antoine

Coypel (French, 1661– 1722), Assembly of the Gods, ca.1703, Oil sketch on canvas, 373⁄8 x 763⁄4 in., Musée des Beaux‑Arts d’Angers, 38 J. 1881 © RMNGrand Palais/Benoît Touchard/Mathieu Rabeau

LEFT Alessandro

Allori (Italian, 1535–1607), Venus Disarming Cupid, 1570s, Oil on panel, 711⁄4 × 1023⁄4 in., Montpellier, Musée Fabre, 887.3, © Musée Fabre de Montpellier Méditerranée Métropole – photograph Frédéric Jaulmes COVER IMAGE Ludovico Carracci (Italian, 1555–1619), The Dream of Saint Catherine of Alexandria, ca. 1593, Oil on canvas, 545⁄8 x 431⁄2 in., National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, Samuel H. Kress Collection, 1952.5.59, Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC

LECTURES Introducing The Orléans Collection with Vanessa Schmid, Senior Research Curator for European Art FRIDAY, 11.2.18 | 6:30 P.M.

Champs-Elysées: Building Paris, Building New Orleans with Joan DeJean, Trustee Professor of Romance Languages, University of Pennsylvania THURSDAY, 11.29.18 | 6 P.M.

Viewing Art in Eighteenth-Century Paris with Andrew McClellan, Professor, Department of Art and Art History, Tufts University FRIDAY, 1.25.19 | 7 P.M.

CLASSES WITH CURATORS Looking at Art in Eighteenth-Century Paris: Curators, Collectors, and Connoisseurs Vanessa Schmid, Senior Research Curator for European Art, and Kelsey Brosnan, Curatorial Fellow

11.27.18 | 12.4.18 | 12.11.18 | 6 – 8 P.M. $150 | $125 NOMA members Registration required.

Email education@noma.org for more information.

BAROQUE AND BEYOND: LES ARTS MUSICAUX presented by the Musical Arts Society of New Orleans and the New Orleans Museum of Art WEDNESDAY, 11.7.18 | 7 P.M. $15 | $10 for NOMA and MASNO members

Register online at noma.org/events NOMA welcomes trumpeter Vance Woolf and pianists Cara McCool Woolf and Dustin Gledhill to the Great Hall for an evening of music inspired by the visual and musical arts of the 17th and 18th centuries.

SYMPOSIUM The Orléans Collection: Tastemaking, Networks, and Legacy FRIDAY – SATURDAY, 1.11 – 1.12.19

Presented by NOMA and the Frick Collection Center for the History of Collecting Reservations required.

Visit noma.org/symposium for more information.

CURATOR’S PERSPECTIVE Evening lectures with Vanessa Schmid

FRIDAY, 11.16.18 | 6 P.M. FRIDAY, 1.25.19 | 6 P.M.

NOONTIME TALKS

with Curator Vanessa Schmid

WEDNESDAY, 10.31.18 | 12 P.M. WEDNESDAY, 12.5.18 | 12 P.M. FRIDAY, 12.28.18 | 12 P.M. WEDNESDAY, 1.23.19 | 12 P.M. with Curatorial Fellow Kelsey Brosnan

WEDNESDAY, 11.14.18 | 12 P.M. WEDNESDAY, 12.19.18 | 12 P.M. WEDNESDAY, 1.9.19 | 12 P.M.

FRENCH CONNECTIONS FILM SERIES A Little Chaos

SATURDAY, 11.3.18 | 2 P.M.

The Death of Louis XIV * (La mort de Louis XIV) SATURDAY, 11.17.18 | 2 P.M. The Royal Exchange* (L’Echange des Princesses) SATURDAY, 11.24.18 | 2 P.M. Dangerous Liaisons SATURDAY, 12.1.18 | 2 P.M. *French with English subtitles

AN EDIBLE FEAST SUNDAY, DECEMBER 9 | 7 P.M. Reservations required. $90 | $75 NOMA members Join us for a decadent evening of art and edibles. A private curator-led gallery tour of The Orléans Collection will be followed by a champagne reception featuring delicacies from New Orleans’s leading pastry chefs.

During the reception, Susan Pinkard, culinary scholar and author of A Revolution in Taste: The Rise of French Cuisine, 1800-1650, will discuss the history of desserts and champagne in early modern France.

Email education@noma.org for more information.

RELATED OFFSITE PROGRAM Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Pygmalion

presented by the New Orleans Opera Association, featuring scenic design elements inspired by The Orléans Collection LE PETIT THEATRE | NOVEMBER 8–11 Tickets at www.neworleansopera.org

NOMA reunites The Orléans Collection, honoring New Orleans’ namesake, Philippe II, Duke of Orléans

Antoine Dieu (French, c. 1662–1727), Allegory of Philippe II, duc d’Orléans, Regent of the Realm, 1718, Oil on canvas, 413⁄4 x 305⁄6 in.,Musée National du Château de Versailles, MV 5968 © RMN-Grand Palais/Art Resource, NY

Numerous writings report that Philippe II was passionate about painting. At his untimely death in 1723 at age 49, the Duke’s inventory recorded almost 800 paintings, some 550 of which were prominently displayed at his Paris residence, the PalaisRoyal. In the Duke’s lifetime, the PalaisRoyal was one of the grandest buildings of Paris, a residence that projected an image of power. Acting as Regent of France until Louis XV came of age, Philippe was a very public figure and his collection was well known throughout Europe.

Philippe II amassed one of the most important art collections Europe had ever seen, and he did this in just over twenty years. In this time period, European noblemen amassed art as a status symbol, but the Duke’s particular passion went well beyond ego. To aid his pursuit, Philippe II hired a court painter, Antoine Coypel.

Having studied masterpieces in Louis XIV’s collection and as a painter previously employed in Rome, Coypel possessed a worldly knowledge of art and he played a key role in forming Philippe’s artistic perspective. Coypel’s writings suggest that he and Philippe met frequently.

Among the many works Antoine Coypel made for the Duke, the most impressive was The Assembly of the Gods of 1702 (see preceding pages). This ceiling painting was for the grandest hall of the PalaisRoyal. The original painting was destroyed in 1785, but the copy kept by Coypel and his descendants accurately records the

original. The painting has never left France and comes to New Orleans to set the stage for The Orléans Collection. At six-and-ahalf-feet wide, the work fully reflects the grandeur of the original ceiling. Against an open sky, the deities of antiquity are meeting: Zeus sits triumphantly at center in a halo of light, surrounded by Venus, Minerva, Neptune, and Mercury—gods of peace, war, navigation, and commerce, all important components of French stature in the early eighteenth century.

Philippe II’s political and cultural persona are celebrated in Antoine Dieu’s Allegory of Philippe II d’Orléans. This painting from the Versailles palace collection ideally encapsulates NOMA’s celebration of the Duke. It glorifies Philippe II both as Regent and commander of the Indies overseas trading company and as a great patron of the arts. The Duke is portrayed in a medallion held aloft by personifications of Law and Fame, at left, and Minerva, goddess of war and the arts, at right. Mercury, the god of commerce and trade, enters at lower right to symbolize the financial stability Philippe II brought to France following the profligate reign of Louis XIV. Philippe II made an important point of displaying the work of French artists at the palace to promote his nation’s culture and achievement. Nicolas Poussin, working earlier in the 1600s, was considered the founder of modern French painting.

Appreciated for the weighty classical subjects he depicted and a crisp style and

THE ORLÉANS COLLECTION: BY THE NUMBERS This fall, masterpieces from The Orléans Collection will be reunited at the New Orleans Museum of Art for the first time in 225 years. NOMA’s exhibition will highlight:

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French, Italian, Dutch, and Flemish works reunited from The Orléans Collection, including works by Carracci, Poussin, Rembrandt, Rubens, and Veronese

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works from European collections, including the Louvre, Versailles, National Gallery of London, and the Royal Museum of Fine Arts of Belgium

Tracing The Birth of Bacchus

Valentin de Boulogne (French, 1591–1632), A Musical Party, ca. 1626, Oil on canvas, 44 × 57 3⁄4 in., Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Gift of The Ahmanson Foundation, AC1998.58.1, Photo © Museum Associates/LACMA

bright palette, he was and remains today one of the most famous French artists. The Duke dedicated a room solely to Poussin’s work.

Ecstasy of Saint Paul (see back page), now in the collection of the Ringling Museum, is a diminutive tour de force demonstrating Poussin’s signature sculptural modeling of human form and clear, bright coloring.

Another masterpiece of French art in Philippe’s collection is the dark, moody Musical Party by Valentin de Boulogne, now in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Musicians of different ages play a concert together in a tavernlike interior. The men may reference the aging process as a progression, like a piece of music. The dramatic spotlighting, deep colors, and arrested movement of the group are all hallmarks of the style of Caravaggio, whose work Valentin had studied in Rome.

The celebrated status of the Duke’s collection endured throughout the eighteenth century, but Philippe’s great-grandson capitalized on this legacy and sold the collection to raise funds during the French

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works from American collections, including museums in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Virginia, and Texas

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Revolution. The momentous sales of the Orléans pictures in London in the 1790s were staged in three gallery spaces across the city and attracted many visitors. This wide viewership of art played a role in the later establishment of cultural institutions, including The National Gallery of London which opened in 1824 with the Orléans acquisitions as the primary attraction.

The great dispersal of the Duke’s pictures continued for centuries after they left the London auction sites. For this exhibition, NOMA will be receiving works not just from Paris and London, but unexpected locales like El Paso, Texas, and Greenville, South Carolina.

No exhibition of this fascinating subject has ever been undertaken. A fully illustrated catalogue has also been published in conjunction with The Orléans Collection, providing new scholarship on the Duke’s collection and its lasting impact.

—VANESSA SCHMID, SENIOR RESEARCH CURATOR FOR EUROPEAN ART, NEW ORLEANS MUSEUM OF ART

paintings were in the Duke of Orléans’ collection at the Palais-Royal in Paris

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paintings from The Orléans Collection have been traced to European, American, and Australian collections

Giulio Romano (Italian, ca. 1499–1546) and workshop, The Birth of Bacchus, ca. 1530s, Oil on panel, 493⁄4 × 311⁄4 in., Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, 60.PB.7, Digital image courtesy of the Getty’s Open Content Program

Hera, a vengeful Greek goddess, watches from behind a cloud as her unfaithful husband, Zeus, descends upon his mortal lover, Semele. Caught in a burst of Zeus’ lightning, Semele dies—but not before giving birth to their infant son Bacchus, the god of wine, who is cradled by a pair of nymphs.

From Italy to England to France and back again, this painting has belonged to some of the most powerful collectors in history—including the Duke of Orléans.

Giulio Romano (Italian, c. 1499–1546) painted The Birth of Bacchus for the Federico II Gonzaga, first Duke of Mantua (1500–1540). A century later, King Charles I of England (1600–1649) bought a number of works from the Gonzaga collection, including this painting. Charles I was overthrown and beheaded, and his paintings were sold at the massive public sale. German banker Everhard Jabach (1618–1695) purchased the painting and brought it to Paris. Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, probably acquired it after Jabach’s death.

The painting remained at the Duke’s Palais-Royal for the rest of the eighteenth-century—until the French Revolution, when the duke’s great-grandson, Philippe Egalité, sold the entire collection. The painting was bought and sold several times in the nineteenth century, but eventually disappeared—only to resurface in Los Angeles in 1941, where it was later purchased by the J. Paul Getty Museum. The Birth of Bacchus will travel another 2,000 miles from Los Angeles to the New Orleans. There, it will be reunited for the first (and possibly last) time with dozens of other works from Orléans collection, after nearly 225 years apart.

History Underfoot Though Philippe II, Duke of Orléans, never set foot in the city that bears his regal title, his legacy can be found underfoot in New Orleans’ oldest neighborhood. The grid-pattern streets of the Vieux Carré, laid out and named in 1721 by Adrien du Pauger, three years after the fledgling settlement of La Nouvelle-Orléans was established, bear the names of the French Regent’s family, friends, and bitter rivals.

ROYAL and BOURBON Philippe II belonged to the royal house of Bourbon, which ruled France from the sixteenth to the nineteenth centuries.

ORLEANS Like his father before him, Philippe II was given the title Duke of Orléans to indicate his proximity to the throne.

CHARTRES Philippe II was known as the Duke of Chartres before inheriting his deceased father’s title.

ST. ANNE Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, was the namesake of Philippe II’s grandmother, Anne of Austria, who had served as regent for her son, Louis XIV, from 1643 to 1651.

ST. LOUIS King Louis IX of France (1214 – 1270) was canonized by Pope Boniface VIII in 1297. St. Louis is the namesake of the “Sun King,” Louis XIV, and his great-grandson, King Louis XV, who also lent their names to the new world territory of Louisiana.

FLEUVE ST. LOUIS The Mississippi River was known as the Fleuve St. Louis during the French territorial period.

DUMAINE and TOULOUSE The Duke of Maine and the Count of Toulouse were Louis XIV’s legitimized sons with his mistress, Madame de Montespan, and political rivals of their cousin, Philippe II of Orléans.

Philippe II orchestrated an annulment of King Louis XIV’s will to assume absolute authority over France until Louis XV came of age.

CONTI (CONDÉ) Conti, or Condé, were royal titles associated with the cousins of the Bourbon family. For example, Louis III, sixth Prince de Condé (1688–1710) was married to Mademoiselle de Nantes, illegitimate daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan. Upon the death of his father, known as the “Grand Condé,” he vied with Philippe II to maintain his title Monsieur le Prince, and like Philippe II, Louis III was a great collector of art.

Map of the city of New Orleans as it was on 30 May 1725. 17 1⁄2 × 21 1⁄4 in. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Département des cartes et plans, Paris, GE DD–2987.

MUSEUM HOURS

SCULPTURE GARDEN HOURS AND ADMISSION

TUESDAY – THURSDAY | 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

FRIDAY | 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.* SATURDAY | 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

SUNDAY | 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.

Free admission, open 7 days a week SUMMER HOURS

April 1 – September 30 | 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.

Closed Mondays Last admittance is 15 minutes before closing.

WINTER HOURS

October 1 – March 31 | 10 a.m. – 5 p.m.

* Check noma.org for special Friday Nights at NOMA programming.

MUSEUM ADMISSION

MUSEUM ADMISSION + FEE FOR THE ORLÉANS COLLECTION

MUSEUM ADMISSION ONLY

ADULTS

$23

$15

SENIOR CITIZENS (65+)

$18

$10

MILITARY (both active and retired)

$18

$10

UNIVERSITY STUDENTS (with valid ID)

$16

$8

CHILDREN (ages 7 – 12)

$14

$6

CHILDREN (ages 6 and under)

Free

Free

TEENS (ages 13 – 19)

Free every day courtesy of The Helis Foundation

Please note that Wednesdays are free admission for Louisiana residents to both the museum and The Orléans Collection, courtesy of The Helis Foundation.

Nicolas Poussin (French, 1594-1665), Ecstasy of Saint Paul, 1643, Oil on panel, 16 3⁄8 x 11 7⁄8 in., The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, the State Art Museum of Florida, Florida State University, Sarasota, Museum purchase, 1956, SN690

SPECIAL MEMBERSHIP PROMOTION During The Orléans Collection, new members may purchase an Individual or Dual/Family membership and receive 15 months of membership for the price of 12. Please apply code ORLEANS3 when purchasing online. Memberships may be purchased at noma.org/join, at NOMA’s Front Desk, or by calling the Membership Department at (504) 658-4130.

MEMBERSHIP

ON VIEW October 26, 2018 – January 27, 2019

Many levels of membership are available with benefits ranging from free admission to the museum (including multiple visits to The Orléans Collection at no additional charge) to reciprocal membership privileges across the U.S. and Canada. For more information about membership, visit noma.org/join, call (504) 658-4130, or email membership@noma.org.

The Orléans Collection is organized by the New Orleans Museum of Art and is sponsored by:

Additional support provided by:

The City of New Orleans New Orleans & Company Samuel H. Kress Foundation Hyatt Regency New Orleans and 1718 Events JPMorgan Chase & Co. New Orleans Tourism Marketing Corporation Robert Lehman Foundation, Inc. Zemurray Foundation Mr. and Mrs. John Bertuzzi

French Heritage Society Dr. Edward Levy, Jr. E. Alexandra Stafford and Raymond M. Rathle, Jr. Jason P. Waguespack Robert and Millie Kohn Wayne Amedee Honorable Steven R. Bordner Nell Nolan and Robert E. Young Charles L. Whited, Jr.

Catherine Burns Tremaine 2018 NOLA Foundation Delta Airlines Pelham Communications Jean and Buddy Bolton Mr. and Mrs. Joseph C. Canizaro Susie and Michael McLoughlin Sally E. Richards Mr. and Mrs. Robert John Axtell Williams

This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.