The Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault
- Date
- c. 1767
- Object type
- painting
- Technique
- oil
- Material
- oak , canvas
- Dimensions
- 31,7 x 26,9 cm
- Acquisition date
- 1783
- Location
- The Palace on the Isle - Portrait Room, ground floor
- Marks and inscriptions
- red number 133 of the Stanisław August collection
- Place of Origin
- France (Europe)
- Owner
- The Royal Łazienki
- Museum number
- ŁKr 889
Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin (1715–1791), the Marquise de La Ferté-Imbault, was the daughter of Marie-Thérèse Geoffrin née Rodet, friend and mentor to Stanisław August. In 1733 she married Philippe-Charles d’Estampes, Marquis de La Ferté-Imbault (d. 1737). Her second husband was Louis Félicité Omer d’Estampes, Marquis de Mauny.
It is a pendant to the likeness of her mother (cat. no. 77; … ) and just like that portrait, it is a reduced, bust-length copy of the knee-length original by Nattier. The original, signed and dated 1740, … . It shows the model seated on a sofa, with a carved and gilded back rest, against a background with a column and drapery, in a richly-decorated dress and cloak for a masked ball (‘domino’), holding a mask in her hand.
Nattier’s original portraits of mother and daughter, which the author of the Łazienki busts used to make his copies, were not painted as pendants—they are not composed in the same manner and have a different character (the serene portrait of the mother stylized on a Muse of antiquity and the stately, monumental portrait d’apparat of the daughter; … —but they obviously functioned as such from the beginning: probably first in the home of Madame Geoffrin in the rue Saint-Honoré ( … ), then later at Madame de La Ferté-Imbault’s home, and that of her heirs.
