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

Apollo, August, 2003 by Francois Marandet

The story of how works of art changed hands in France starts to become clearer from the 1740s on, when printed catalogues for auctions first began to appear. While the majority of Parisian auctions were then run by Gersaint, other names emerged during the following decade, in particular those of Glomy, Basan, Remy and Francois Joullain. The number of such sales increased from the 1770s on, and more often than not they were conducted by Paillet and Jean-Baptiste Pierre Le Brun. Dictionaries of the history of art and a number of recent monographs have familiarised us with these different personalities involved in the sales of works of art and curiosities in the eighteenth century. (1) The case of Pierre Remy, whose dates had not come 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 enjoy the privilege of being consulted 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 virtue of the number of auctions he conducted, alone or in collaboration with other experts: Frits Lugt lists no fewer than one hundred and thirty between 1755 and 1791. (2) In fact, Remy's work as an expert covers an even longer period, since he is first recorded in 1753, and was still carrying out valuations in 1794. (3) Remy also qualifies through the role he played as an adviser to a number of prominent collectors: from the 1750s to the 1770s he supplied major cabinets of curiosities, both in Paris and abroad.

We will not discuss the role Remy played as an agent--for all that annotations in sale catalogues make it possible to reconstruct that role to a large extent--so much as his origins and the context of his training. Then various dealers and restorers, his collaborators or rivals, whom Remy had occasion to frequent in the course of his professional activities, will be introduced. After analysing how experts were paid on the basis of a few examples, we will see in what respects Remy was a unique connoisseur for his period where painting is concerned. During our research, we were able to rediscover various post mortem inventories, in which expert reports by Pierre Remy appear. These have been collected in an Appendix at the end 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, one of the four jures en charge (directors) of the guild between 1733 and 1735, carried out 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 debts, amounting to 4600 livres, which Louis Remy had owing to him on his death in 1737--are in sharp contrast with the modest interior of the house he inhabited with his wife and only son, Pierre, in the Rue Aumaire. (5) There was no expert 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 property, dating from ten months after his death, was only drawn up in connection with Pierre Remy's marriage contract, signed on 11 May 1738. (6) He was twenty-two years old 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 uncles, Jean-Baptiste, Jacques and Nicolas Adan, and her two brothers, Jean-Edme and Jean-Jacques. The bride was given a dowry of three thousand livres in ready money, a third of it reserved for the couple's communal use. The amount of Pierre Remy's dower, twelve hundred livres, was much less; one thousand livres were again for both of them, with the sum to which the widow would be entitled from the estate being set at eight hundred livres. Pierre Remy's family connection with the Adans was to have a direct influence on the path he followed in life. Anne Thiboeuf, Pierre Remy's mother-in-law, turns out to have been a cousin of Edme-Francois Gersaint. On 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 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 collect the sum owing to him from the said Heurtout. A receipt, issued in the presence of the local notary, made it clear that Remy was only Pingat's 'nominee'. We are fairly well informed about Pingat, whose seal was published by Jules Guiffrey. (9) A first inventory of his property 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 experts did not attribute the one hundred and eighty or so pictures he had in stock, but Gersaint's name appears under no. 38: 'two pictures jointly owned with Monsieur Gersin, marchand'. Either because that comment was not appropriate within the strict context of an inventory, or because it was incorrect, it was scored through 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 next two were in fact the most expensive in the inventory. Quite apart from their situation as neighbours on the Pont Notre-Dame--Gersaint's premises there were the subject of the famous picture by Antoine Watteau (Fig. 1)--the links between Gersaint and Pingat are confirmed by other documents. While the sale catalogue of Angran de Fonspertuis's collection was prepared by Gersaint in 1748, (12) the paintings in that collection had originally been valued by Gersaint and Pingat. (13) On Gersaint's death in 1750, it was Pingat who was appointed to carry out the estimate of his pictures. (14) It seems more reasonable to assume that Remy was introduced to Gersaint through the Adans, and then to Pingat through Gersaint, than that he met the Adans through Pingat or Gersaint. If Remy had got to know his future wife through Pingat and then Gersaint, surely the two dealers would have been present at their friend's wedding. Instead, there was no witness from outside the two families present at Pierre Remy's marriage.