JACQUES ANDRE JOSEPH AVED. 1702-1766

58 PORTRAIT OF PROSPER CREBILLON

Oil on canvas. 140 X 109 cm. Inv. No 3779 Prosper Jolyot Crebillon (1674—1762) was a well-known French playwright, author of the tragedies Idomenee (1705), Atree et Thyeste (1707), Rhadamiste et Zenobie (1711), Pyrrhus (1726), etc. The portrait was painted in 1746, as witnessed by the inscription on the engraving of J. Balechou. In the same year, the portrait was exhibited in the Salon. In 1905 it was identified by S. Diaghilev as a portrait of Count Heinrich Johann Ostermann by an unknown master. The present correct attribution was made by N. Vaudeau in 1953, on the basis of Bale-chou's burin engraving. There are numerous engravings of the portrait made by other artists. Provenance: until 1905 The Kurakins Collection, Na-dezhdino Estate, Saratov province; 1905—21 The N. Tiutchev Collection, Moscow (purchased from

F. Kurakin); 1921—56 The Tiutchev Estate Museum, Muranovo; since 1956 The Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow

Exhibitions: 1746 Paris (Salon), Cat. 79; 1905 St Petersburg, Cat. 329; 1955 Moscow, Cat., p. 21; 1956 Leningrad, Cat., p. 7

Bibliography: Кат. ГМИИ 1957, p. 7; Кат. ГМИИ 1961, p. 7; Catalogue raisonne de la collection de feu M. Aved, appendix 3, Paris, 1766, p. 225, No 128;

G. Wildenstein, Le Peintre J. A. J. Aved. Sa vie et son osuvre, 2 vols., Paris, 1922, vol. 1, p. 70, vol. 2, No 27; H. Водо, "Неопубликованный портрет драматурга Кребийона работы Аведа", Труды ГМИИ, 1960, р. 247; Золотое 1968, р. 76, ill.

58 PORTRAIT OF PROSPER CREBILLON