Another portrait which attracts much notice is that of Antoine de
Bourgogne, the _Grand Bâtard_, the second of the nineteen illegitimate
sons of Philippe le Bon. This painting was presented to the Duc d'Aumale
by the Duke of Sutherland. It is an exquisite work of art which has been
variously attributed to Memling, to Roger van der Weyden, and to Ugo van
der Goes, but it is to the last-named artist that it can be assigned
with greater probability. The _Grand Bâtard_[21] wears the Order of the
Golden Fleece instituted by his father at Bruges in 1430, and appears to
be about forty years of age, the period of life when he gained his great
victory over the Moors at Ceuta. He was not only a valiant warrior, but
also an arduous bibliophile and collector. His Château of La Roche
contained many interesting illuminated manuscripts now dispersed, and of
these the _Froissart_ at Breslau is amongst the most celebrated. Like
all those that belonged to him, it bears his autograph "_ob de
Bourgogne_" "ob" being an abbreviation of the Greek word _[Greek:
obalós]_, which means _bâtard_.[22]
The drawings of this Sutherland Collection, especially those belonging
to the sixteenth century, are less important, many of them appearing to
be copies by inferior hands; those, however, of the seventeenth century
by Quesnel and Dumoustier are first-rate. Among the portraits in pastel
may be noted likenesses of _Madame de Montespan_, _Louis XIII_, _Gaston
d'Orléans_, _Louis de Haros_, and an interesting portrait of _Watteau_
designed by Boucher after an original by Watteau himself.
In 1877 the Duc d'Aumale availed himself of another opportunity of
restoring to France a French collection which had been brought to
England, namely, that of M. Carmontelle, which comprised no less than
450 coloured sketches for portraits which date from the year 1757 to the
year 1775. Carmontelle, as tutor to the Duc de Chartres, had plenty of
opportunity during his leisure hours to sketch all the men and women
with whom he came in contact, which he did merely for his own amusement,
without any expectation of payment. The facility with which he executed
these sketches astonished even Grimm, who remarked upon his skill. In
about two hours each, with the greatest ease, he reproduced all the most
noticeable figures in the life of the period, from the Dauphin and his
courtiers, the Princes and Princesses of the House of Bourbon and
Orléans, the officers, ladies and gentlemen, ecclesiastics, musicians
and actors, down to the domestics, and even the floor-scrubber at
Saint-Cloud. These sketches amounted at the time of his death to the
number of 700, and in 1807 were bought _en bloc_ by his friend Richard
de Ledans, who disposed of a good many of them. When he died in 1816 450
drawings only were left. These were at once bought by Pierre de la
Mesangère, editor of _Le Journal des Dames et des Modes_, and they form
an exceedingly valuable record of the fashions at the time of Louis XV.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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