The collection of the Marquis de LAGOY (1764-1829) Jean-Baptiste-Florentin-Gabriel... - Lot 0 - Kâ-Mondo

The collection of the Marquis de LAGOY (1764-1829) Jean-Baptiste-Florentin-Gabriel de Meryan, Marquis de Lagoy, was born in 1764 in Arles, Provence. As the heir of his uncle, Jean-Baptiste-Marie de Piquet, he took the titles of Marquis de Méjanes and Lord of Albaron. He joined the King's regiment as an officer on April 29, 1781, and remained there until the corps was dismissed on October 17, 1789. During the revolutionary turmoil he lived in Paris, then in Chartres. In September 1795 he made a trip to Provence, to be struck off the list of emigrants on which he had been wrongly carried, and returned to settle in Paris, where he remained until 1806, the year of his wife's death. He then returned to the Château de Lagoy, which he found looted and devastated. The Dictionary of Parliamentarians says of him: "He did not emigrate, was forgotten during the revolutionary period, and fulfilled no function before the return of the Bourbons. Dedicated to the royalist cause, he was elected on August 22, 1815 as deputy for the Bouches-du-Rhône. He sat in the majority of the chamber that could not be found and was re-elected on October 4, 1816. The Marquis de Lagoy left the House in 1821 and returned on 17 November 1827 as deputy for the 3rd arrondissement of the Bouches-du-Rhône (Arles). "He supported the Polignac ministry and died in 1829 during the legislature in Saint-Rémy-de-Provence. Remarkably gifted from an artistic point of view, an excellent violinist, the Marquis possessed a rich collection of more than 3000 drawings by 870 different masters from all periods and schools; there were 17 Raphael and as many Michelangelo. The leaves came from the best collections, such as those of Vasari, Crozat, Mariette. With a free and learned point, worthy of the Count de Caylus, the Marquis reproduced the best by engraving. When in 1820 a cabinet of Greek coins was sent from Naples to Paris to be sold, the Marquis communicated to Berthault, the agent of the English merchant Woodburn, his intention to sell a number of his drawings in order to be able to buy these coins. Woodburn bought 138 of his most beautiful drawings, including the Raphael. Upon his return, Woodburn sold almost all the drawings to the amateur Dimsdale (L.2426) and from his collection, which died three years later, they passed to the collection of the painter Thomas Lawrence. Most of them are now kept in museums, such as the Ashmolean in Oxford or the British Museum. A sale of part of his collection took place in Paris on 17 April 1834. An important part of the private collection kept by the Marquis de Lagoy after the partial sale to Woodburn in 1820 was preserved by the Marquis' descendants. To this day it adorns the picture rails of the charming Château de Lagoy, built at the beginning of the 18th century a few kilometres from Aix-en-Provence. The few exceptional leaves that we have the honour of presenting here will, we are sure, be a delight for lovers of drawings, unconditional admirers of the collection assembled at the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th centuries by the Marquis de Lagoy. Not having been offered for sale in his time, they do not bear the famous collector's mark, the L in a triangle, but everyone will be able to find in them the refined taste of the Marquis de Lagoy. Sources : Frits Lugt, Les marques de Collections de Dessins et d'Estampes, 1921, available on the Fondation Custodia website, marquesdecollections.fr Roseline Bacou, Le marquis de Lagoy grand collectionneur du dix-huitième siècle, in L'oeil, July-August 1962, pp.46-52,78 A study on The collection of drawings of the Italian School of the Marquis de Lagoy (1764- 1829) was the subject of a thesis by Madame Béatrice de Moustier in 2012. Madame de Moustier will soon publish a book with Gourcuff Editions on the Marquis de Lagoy's collection of drawings.