__________________________________________________________________________________________ click image to enlarge
Provenance
Darryl Zannuck, President, 20th Century Fox, by
1935*
Private collection,
Los Angeles
*This
painting belonged to the President of 20th Century Fox for the majority
of the 20th century, and was displayed on the sets of numerous
productions.
Condition
The
painting is in good condition and has been recently cleaned. There is selective scattered retouch throughout, and more
extensive retouch to the sitter's left forearm. Fine craqueleur is evident in the
paint layer but is stable with no indication cupping or flaking. The signature verso was transcribed by another
hand onto the newer support when the painting was lined.
Biography
In 1710, the year Henri Millot
painted Before the Ball, the
French art realm was beginning to move out of a pious and emotive Baroque
era. King Louis XIV, a great proponent of the arts, had long lionized
portraitist Hyacinthe Regaud, and artists including Charles Le Brun,
Pierre Mignard, and Antoine Coysevox enjoyed similarly fruitful careers
through the turn of the century. Henri Millot did not enjoy the same
celebrity as his contemporaries but he did show a great talent for
portraiture and exhibited a forward-thinking style, which is seen in Before the Ball. Though the playful
and decorative Rococo period was not a prominent artistic movement until
the 1730s, Millot's idyllic belle is portrayed in a manner that bears
early suggestions of the style. Her alabaster skin and ornately
embroidered dress are painted with luminous, rich colors.
In her right hand she holds a small mask. This was not intended to be worn but is rather a symbol of Thalia, the classical muse of
comedy and pastoral poetry, inserted by the artist to reflect the sitter's wit,
charm and sophistication. Millot indulges the
viewer in the beauty of his subject in a way that artists of his
time had not. Twenty years from his completion of Before the Ball, the lubricious court
of Louis XV would only begin to celebrate such flattered displays of
women. Before the Ball is
a well preserved and exquisitely painted portrait of its day.
click image to enlarge  Henri Millot was born in Paris during the last half of the 17th century. A noted portrait painter of the 18th century, he was a
pupil of N. Largilleier. Records indicate that Millot witnessed a marriage contract between Largillier's cousin and her husband in
1711. He painted in Munich from 1721 to 1724 and in Strasbourg in
1730 before returning to Paris. He was a member of the Academie de
Saint Luc, a painter's guild established in Paris in 1391. He died in Paris in 1758. |
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