Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771)
after Louis Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707 - Paris 1771)
Category
Art / Oil paintings
Date
1759
Materials
Oil on canvas
Measurements
699 x 464 mm (27 ½ x 18 ¼ in)
Order this imageCollection
Ickworth, Suffolk (Accredited Museum)
NT 851927
Caption
Claude-Adrien Helvétius was a Paris-born philosopher of Swiss origin. He began his career as a fermier-général (tax farmer) and chamberlain to the Queen, but in 1751 withdrew to the château de Voré (which he had bought in 1749 from the son of Louis XIV’s celebrated physician, Fagon), to devote himself to philosophy, philanthropy, and work for the Encyclopédie. His most celebrated work, De l’Esprit (1758), was censured by the Pope and burned by order of the Parlement de Paris. He visited England in 1764. There is a letter from Mary Lepel, Lady Hervey, dated 21st November 1758, in which she proposes to acquire copies of L’Esprit, “now forbid in Paris”. Thanks to this admiration, she obtained the present portrait. This is a copy of the head-and-shoulders studio version, or autograph replica, derived from one of a pair of whole-length portraits in interiors of Helvétius and his wife exhibited by Louis-Michel Vanloo in the 1755 Salon.
Summary
Oil painting on canvas, Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), after Louis-Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707 - Paris 1771), 1759. A painted oval head-and-shoulders portrait of a man against a dark background, in a painted oval simulated stone surround. He has shortish grey hair. He wears a green coat over a white embroidered stock, and a waistcoat with gold braid just visible. Unsigned. Claude-Adrien Helvétius (1715–1771), a Paris-born philosophe of – as his name would suggest – Swiss origin, was a philosopher; member of the family of physicians of that name. He began his career as a fermier-général (tax farmer) and chamberlain to the Queen, but in 1751 withdrew to the château de Voré (which he had bought in 1749 from the son of Louis XIV’s celebrated physician, Fagon), to devote himself to philosophy, philanthropy, and work for the Encyclopédie. His most celebrated work, De l’Esprit (1758), was censured by the Pope and burned by order of the Parlement de Paris. He visited England in 1764. His posthumously published De l’homme had a great influence on Jeremy Bentham and the British Utilitarians.
Provenance
Painted at the request of Molly Lepel, Lady Hervey, via Mme Geoffrin in 1759; thence by descent to 4th Marquess of Bristol (1863-1951), after whose death accepted with house and contents in lieu of HM Treasury and transferred to the National Trust in 1956
Credit line
Ickworth, The Bristol Collection (acquired through the National Land Fund and transferred to The National Trust in 1956)
Makers and roles
after Louis Michel van Loo (Toulon 1707 - Paris 1771) , artist manner of Jean-Baptiste van Loo (Aix-en-Provence 1684 - Aix-en-Provence 1745) , artist previously catalogued as after François Hubert Drouais (Paris 1727 - Paris 1775), artist
References
Farrer 1908 Edmund Farrer, Portraits in Suffolk Houses (West), 1908, no. 42