The Artist: Who Was "B.N. de la Pierre"?
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Benjamin Nicolas Delapierre1 (circa 17392 – 24 January 18023) was a highly regarded French artist during the second half of the 18th century, probably of Parisian4 origin.
A student at the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris (Académie de Paris) and a protégé of Charles-André van Loo in October 1758,5 he participated at a "youth" art exposition in Paris in 1764.6
In June 1765, he was still at the Académie de Paris, but then listed as the 26-year-old student of Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée and Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin. His career spanned almost four decades, ending in France at the beginning of the 19th century.7 8
Career in Russia
For many years in the interim, Delapierre was a prominent painter in Russia. He was active in Moscow (1767), where he painted for the steward of the household of Count Panin. He moved in 1768 with the royal court to St. Petersburg, where he taught at the Imperial Academy of Arts and painted a portrait of Petr Borisovich Sheremetev—one of the wealthiest men in the world at the time—plus members of Sheremetev's family.9 10 11 12 13
In 1770, Delapierre achieved the title of "agréé" at the Imperial Academy of Arts for a 1768 portrait of Catherine II and a 1770 portrait of Count Nicholas Petrovich Sheremetev.14 He also was appointed official court painter that year, executing portraits of the principal members of the imperial family, including the young Grand Duke—son of Catherine II and later to become Tsar Paul I.15 16
In 1772, Delapierre was appointed a member of the Academy of Fine Arts in St. Petersburg for his portrait of the Academy professor Nicolas-Francois Gillet.17
Some of Delapierre's finest works are displayed in Russia at the Kuskovo Estate Museum, Moscow.18 19
Return to France
By 1786 Delapierre was again in France and working in Lyon, where he exhibited four of his portraits at the "Sallon des Arts" of Lyon (25 August 1786 – 11 September 1786).20
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Signature and date on 1781 portrait— "Russian [sic] Officer" (N.B. De La Pierre 1781). |
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Signature and date on 1782 portrait—"Mother Feeding Her Child" (B.N. de la Pierre. 1782). |
The research team has not been able to determine exactly when Delapierre returned to France; however, a change in the way he signed his paintings, the nationalities of some of his clients, and his frequent use of standard French canvas sizes beginning in 1782 indicate that he may have returned in that year.
Delapierre used the initials "N.B." when signing several paintings leading up to and including one painted in 1781. In 1782 and again in 1785, he used the initials "B.N.," possibly in keeping with the French custom at that time of reversing first and middle names.21 It was also around this time that he apparently stopped using his Russian title when signing his paintings.22 23
Moreover, his painting of a Swiss military officer in 1781 and his six paintings of members of the von Steiger family of Thun, Switzerland—five dated 1781 and one dated 1782—suggest that he had left Russia before the end of 1781.24
Finally, of the Delapierre paintings whose sizes are known to the research team, none dated earlier than 1782 is of a size consistent with prefabricated canvas standards prevalent in France at the time. But, beginning with a portrait dated 1782 of a mother feeding her child, many of the artist's paintings had dimensions consistent with the French standards.25 26
If Delapierre indeed was in France in 1785, it is highly likely that he attended the month-long "Salon de 1785" biennial art exposition in Paris that began on 25 August 1785. This event was sponsored by the Académie de Paris—where Delapierre studied before moving to Russia—and was enormously popular among artists and art clients from throughout Europe.27 It might have been where Delapierre met the sitter depicted in his 1785 painting.28
Delapierre was married at least twice—to Jeanne-Élisabeth Desnoyers on 11 May 1771 in Russia29 30 and the last time to Marie-Victoire Genève de Brézy on 15 February 1791 in Lyon—and died in Lyon on 24 January 1802. 31
To date, project researchers have found references to more than 40 works attributed to Delapierre.
References and notes
[1] Other spellings include "Nicolas-Benjamin" and, less frequently, "Nicholas-Benjamin." The last name is occasionally spelled "De Lapierre" or "de la Pierre."
[2] M. Audin & E. Vial, Dictionnaire des artistes et ouvriers d'art du Lyonnais, 1918, p. 483.
[3] Benoît Berger, "Nicolas-Benjamin DELAPIERRE (ca 1739-Lyon, 1802): Visage(s) d'un portraitiste," La Lettre de la Miniature, No. 11, March 2012, pp. 3-7. Link to article.
[4] Ibid. The marriage record of Nicolas-Benjamin Delapierre on 15 February 1792 in Lyon listed his father as François Joseph Delapierre (Ref: Archives municipals de Lyon—Registres paroissaiux et d'état civil; Saint-Pierre Saint-Saturin; Marriages-Sépultures: 01/01/1791- 31/12/1792 [vue 17] 1GG650; entry #115). According to Berger (see note 3 above), François Joseph died in Paris on 24 June 1795. A painter with this name was admitted to the Académie de Saint-Luc in Paris on 16 March 1741 (Ref: Louis Réau, Histoire de l'expansion de l'art français moderne: le monde slave et l'Orient, Henri Laurens, Paris, 1924, p. 150—which references J.J. Guiffrey, Histoire de l'Académie de Saint-Luc, p. 252). If François Joseph, the father, and François Joseph, the artist, are the same person, then this and the place of death of his father would be additional evidence of Nicolas-Benjamin's Parisian origin. According to Berger (see note 3 above) Nicolas-Benjamin’s mother was buried on 2 May 1792 in Melun, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) from central Paris, suggesting that the family was from near Paris. However, Berger could not find evidence of Nicolas-Benjamin’s birth or baptism in Melun parishes.
[5] M. Audin & E. Vial, Dictionnaire des artistes et ouvriers d'art du Lyonnais, 1918, p. 483.
[6] Benoît Berger, "Sur les traces du peintre Nicolas-Benjamin Delapierre," Bulletin Municipal Officiel, Ville de Lyon, No. 5710, 1 October 2007.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Library of the ENSBA (Ecole Nationale Superieure des Beaux Arts, Paris), Mss 45, fol. 30 & 80.
[9] Joseph De Baye, Kouskovo, la résidence d'un grand seigneur russe au XVIIIe siècle; Paris: Nilsson, 1905.
[10] Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres sculpteurs dessinateurs et graveurs, Vol. 4, 1999.
[11] Jacob Staehelin, Notes on the Fine Arts in Russia, Vol. 1, printed in Moscow, 1990, p. 91 (in Russian).
[12] Saur, Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexicon. Die Bildenen Kunstler all Zeiten und Voelker, Band 25; Doyan-Delvoye, Muchen, Leipzig, 2000, p. 370.
[13] Douglas Smith, The Pearl, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2008, figs. 5 and 6 following p. 194 (Delapierre portraits of Nicholas Sheremetev and his sister Countess Varvara Sheremeteva—both dated 1769—in Kuskovo Estate Museum, Moscow).
[14] Saur, Allgemeines Kunstler-Lexicon. Die Bildenen Kunstler all Zeiten und Voelker, Band 25; Doyan-Delvoye, Muchen, Leipzig, 2000, p. 370.
[15] (a) Ibid.; (b) Bénézit, Dictionnaire critique et documentaire des peintres sculpteurs dessinateurs et graveurs, Vol. 4, 1999; (c) Louis Réau, Histoire de l'expansion de l'art français moderne: le monde slave et l'Orient, Henri Laurens, Paris, 1924, p. 150.
[16] Jacob Staehelin, Notes on the Fine Arts in Russia, Vol. 1, printed in Moscow, 1990, p. 91 (in Russian).
[17] Ibid.
[18] Priscilla Roosevelt, Life on the Russian Country Estate—A Social and Cultural History, Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 1995, pp. 27, 59-62.
[19] Douglas Smith, The Pearl, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2008, figs. 5 and 6 following p. 194.
[20] M.F. Perez, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, "L'Exposition du Sallon des Arts de Lyon en 1786," December 1975, pp. 199-206.
[21] The first and middle name
reversal is illustrated by a medal commemorating Comte de Mirabeau as one of the
great men of France. The initials on the coin are "G.H.," yet his first and
middle names in most official records are Honoré Gabriel.
[22] A 1780 painting had a signature block starting with "N.B. De La Pierre Peintre de S.M. / L'Imperitrice de Toutes le Russies... " [N.B. De La Pierre Painter of H[er] M[ajesty]/ The Empress of all Russias...]. The research team has found no later paintings with this or similar titles from Delapierre's time in Russia.
[23] For a compilation of Delapierre's paintings known to the research team, including how he signed them, see Works by Delapierre.
[24] Ibid. Thun, Switzerland—where the von Steiger family resided—is about 225 kilometers (140 miles) from Lyon, France, where Delapierre is known to have been working in 1786.
[25] Delapierre’s primary patron in Russia and probably the person who introduced him to the imperial court—Count Nikita Ivanovich Panin—was removed from office in May 1781 (see note 3 above). This may have motivated Delapierre to leave Russia later that year.
[26] The research team knows the sizes of 12 Delapierre portraits painted prior to 1782. None of these have dimensions consistent with standard-size French prefabricated canvases of the period. Then, beginning with a 1782 portrait of a mother feeding her child, a number of Delapierre's canvases closely match the French standards. Indeed, that 1782 portrait—and all but one of the next four Delapierre portraits having dimensions known to the team—come within a fraction of a centimeter in both height and width of exactly matching the measurements of prefabricated canvases common in late-18th-century France. The one exception in this group is the 1785 Delapierre portrait, which may have been commissioned by Thomas Jefferson to satisfy a request from a military colleague to precisely match the size of a portrait of Benjamin Franklin that the colleague already owned (see Request for Painting: Why Was the Portrait Painted?). For a list of Delapierre portraits known to the team and their sizes (when known), see Works by Delapierre. For a table to convert 18th century French canvas measurements ("pied du Roi") to modern units (inches and centimeters), see Request for Painting: Why Was the Portrait Painted?, note 4.
[27] William Howard Adams, Editor, The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri, 1976, pp. 152-154.
[28] Thomas Jefferson almost certainly attended all three of the biennial expositions that took place when he was in Paris—in 1785, 1787, and 1789. (Ref: William Howard Adams, Editor, The Eye of Thomas Jefferson, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri, 1976, p. 152.) From 17 October 1784 through 16 October 1785, Jefferson resided in an apartment in Paris at "rue et Cul de sac Taitbout Chaussée d'antin"—about a kilometer from the 1785 exposition. (Ref: Howard C. Rice, Jr., Thomas Jefferson's Paris, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey, 1976, pp. 37-38, 51.) Jefferson may have been introduced to Delapierre by Baron Grimm, who had earlier met Jefferson and undoubtedly knew or knew of Delapierre.
[29]Benoît Berger, "Nicolas-Benjamin DELAPIERRE (ca 1739-Lyon, 1802): Visage(s) d'un portraitiste," La Lettre de la Miniature, No. 11, March 2012, pp. 3-7. Link to article.
[30] M.F. Perez, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, "L'Exposition du Sallon des Arts de Lyon en 1786," December 1975, pp. 199-206; one of the paintings exhibited was listed as "the wife of the author.," perhaps Jeanne-Élisabeth.
[31] Benoît Berger, Sur les traces du peintre Nicolas-Benjamin Delapierre, Bulletin Municipal Officiel, Ville de Lyon, No. 5710, 1 October 2007.