Artist: Louis-Jacques Cathelin (1739-1804)
Title: Portrait of Joseph Marie Terray
Date: 1777
School: French, XVIIIth century
Medium: engraving
Dimensions: 515 x 353mm (plate), 652 x 480mm (sheet)
Watermark: Auvergne
Inscriptions/marks: in the plate lower border, <<Joseph Marie Terray……>>
In the plate lower left border, <<Peint par Roslin, Chevalier de l’Ordre de Vasa 1774>>
In the plate lower right border, <<Gravé par L.J. Cathelin, pour sa reception à l’Académie>>
Condition: engraving on laid paper with wide margins. Slight discolouration at the edges of the sheet, otherwise fine
Description: engraved by Louis-Jacques Cathelin for his reception piece to the Royal Academy after the painted portrait by Alexandre Roslin (collections of Versailles, see image below). Portrait of the disgraced minister of finance and art, dismissed from office upon the accession of king Louis XVI. A notable collector and supporter of contemporary painters and sculptors, see Colin B. Bailey, Patriotic taste, collecting modern art in pre-Revolutionary Paris, Yale University Press, 2002, pp. 71ff. He is shown as having just signed the authorisation to pay Chardin for his services as Treasurer of the Royal Academy.
Reference: IFF, 72, iii/iii
Provenance: Norman Blackburn Antiquarian Printseller, London, 1992
