Connoisseurship and picture framing in the 1990s

Abstract

Painted during the first half of 1791, Henri-Pierre Danloux’s Portrait of the Baron de Besenval (Figure 1) depicts the elderly collector in the Salon de Compagnie of his Paris h&d surrounded by his paintings and oriental porcelain. These paintings are hung on green damask-the preferred background in l&h-century France-and thanks to his meticulously finished style, the frames can be studied in some detail. But just how reliable, as a document, is this extremely rare, if not unique, portrait of an 18th-century French collector in his picture cabinet? And what conclusions can legitimately be drawn from it? Displayed in the remarkable exhibition 1789: French Art During the Revolution,organized by Alan Wintermute in 1989 for Colnaghi, New York,l this little masterpiece draws attention to how little, as well as how much, we really know about the history of picture framing.