Pierre Remy : the Parisian art market in the mid-eighteenth century - 1715-97

The story of in what manner works of art changed hands in France starts to become clearer from the 1740 upon when printed catalogues for auctions first began to appear. While the majority of Parisian auctions were then race by Gersaint, other names emerg during the following decade, in particular those of Glomy, Basan, Remy and Francois Joullain. The number of similar sales increased from the 1770 upon and more often than not they were administrationed by Paillet and Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun Dictionaries of the history of art and a number of novel monographs have familiarised us with these different personalities involved in the sales of works of art and curiosities in the eighteenth hundred (1) The case of Pierre Remy, whose dates had not advance down to us, is something of an exception. Is this because Remy, unlike Pierre-Francois Basan, Francois Joullain and Le Brun was neither an engraver nor a publisher of prints? Remy did not write any biographies or treatises, and--unlike Alexandre Paillet--did not take pleasure in the privilege of being deliberateed by the Crown concerning the acquisition of works of art. The other difference between him and the main dealers of his day is that, following his death in 1797 there was no sale of his business stock. The combination of these various factors was to contribute towards this major figure in what is now called the art market being forgotten after his death. Nevertheless, Remy does indeed qualify as a major figure by the agency of virtue of the number of auctions he leadershiped alone or in collaboration with other experts: Frits Lugt lists no fewer than single hundred and thirty between 1755 and 1791 (2) In fact, Remy's work as an apt covers an even longer period, since he is first recorded in 1753 and was still carrying without valuations in 1794. (3) Remy also qualifies from one side the role he played as an adviser to a number of prominent collectors: from the 1750 to the 1770 he supplied major cabinets of curiosities, the couple in Paris and abroad.

We will not discuss the part Remy played as an agent--for all that annotations in sale catalogues make it possible to re-establish that role to a large extent--so a great deal of as his origins and the adjoining matter of his training. Then various dealers and restorers, his collaborators or rivals, whom Remy had occasion to of frequent occurrence in the course of his professional activities, will be introduced. After analysing in what manner experts were paid on the basis of a hardly any examples, we will see in what honors Remy was a unique connoisseur for his period where painting is regarded During our research, we were able to rediscover various pillar mortem inventories, in which quick reports by Pierre Remy appear. These have been mustered in an Appendix at the extreme point of this article, along with those that were already known, in the form of a chronological list.

Pierre Remy was the son of the maitre peintre doreur Louis Remy and of Marie-Anne Pietrequin, who were married in 1714 (4) Louis Remy, individual of the four jures en charge (directors) of the guild between 1733 and 1735 carried without gilding for a prestigious clientele, including in particular the Duc d'Orleans, the Prince de Poix and the Prince de Soubise. However, these names--and the not inconsiderable dues amounting to 4600 livres, which Louis Remy had owing to him upon his death in 1737--are in sharp contrast with the unobtrusive interior of the house he inhabited with his wife and alone son, Pierre, in the grieve for Aumaire. (5) There was no apt valuation of the objects from which Louis made his living, and it may be noted that the Remy family had no private income. The inventory of Louis Remy's quality dating from ten months after his death, was sole drawn up in connection with Pierre Remy's marriage contract, signed upon 11 May 1738. (6) He was twenty-two years elderly when he married Marie-Edmee Adan, which means he must have been born around December 1715; she came from a family of monumental masons. That was the profession of her father, Jean Adan, her three uncle Jean-Baptiste, Jacques and Nicolas Adan, and her sum of two units brothers, Jean-Edme and Jean-Jacques. The bride was given a dowry of three thousand livres in ready circulating medium a third of it reserv for the couple's communal use. The amount of Pierre Remy's dower, twelve hundr livres, was abundant less; one thousand livres were again for the pair of them, with the sum total to which the widow would be entitled from the estate being put at eight hundred livres. Pierre Remy's family connection with the Adans was to have a direct influence upon the path he followed in life. Anne Thiboeuf, Pierre Remy's mother-in-law, move rounds out to have been a cousin of Edme-Francois Gersaint. upon 30 January 1718, she--along with her husband Jean Adan--was a witness at the drawing up of the contract for the famous marchand-mercier's first marriage. (7) Shortly after his marriage to Marie Edmee Adan, Remy is documented as working for the maitre peintre and art dealer Jacques Pingat. Indeed, the inventory of Pingat's papers lists a note written by the agency of a man called Heurtout, dated March 1741 payable to Remy. (8) In July 1745 Remy was in Auxois, at the hamlet of Moutier St-Jean, to gather the sum owing to him from the said Heurtout. A receipt, issued in the vicinity of the local notary, made it clear that Remy was single Pingat's 'nominee'. We are fairly well informed about Pingat, whose seal was published by the agency of Jules Guiffrey. (9) A first inventory of his quality had been drawn up in 1733 (10) the date of the death of his wife Catherine Demortain, the daughter and sister of maitres peintres. (11) The readys did not attribute the individual hundred and eighty or with equal reason pictures he had in stock, on the other hand Gersaint's name appears under no. 38: 'two pictures jointly haveed with Monsieur Gersin, marchand'. Either because that make comments [i]or[/i] remarks was not appropriate within the strict adjoining matter of an inventory, or because it was incorrect, it was scored end and the following description written in its place: 'one picture depicting a bacchanal in its giltwood frame, valued at 130 livres'. That painting and the nearest two were in fact the greatest in quantity expensive in the inventory. Quite apart from their situation as neighbours upon the Pont Notre-Dame--Gersaint's premises there were the make submissive of the famous picture through Antoine Watteau (Fig. 1)--the links between Gersaint and Pingat are confirmed by means of other documents. While the sale catalogue of Angran de Fonspertuis's collection was prepared through Gersaint in 1748, (12) the paintings in that collection had originally been valued by means of Gersaint and Pingat. (13) upon Gersaint's death in 1750, it was Pingat who was appointed to carry without the estimate of his pictures. (14) It present the appearances more reasonable to assume that Remy was introduced to Gersaint from one side the Adans, and then to Pingat from one side Gersaint, than that he met the Adans end Pingat or Gersaint. If Remy had got to know his futurity wife through Pingat and then Gersaint, assuredly the two dealers would have been not absent at their friend's wedding. Instead, there was no witness from outside the sum of two units families present at Pierre Remy's marriage.