Giuseppe Balsamo, Comte di Cagliostro
Jean-Antoine Houdon1786
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
Houdon, among the greatest portraitists in history, may have met the Comte di Cagliostro through the Masonic order, of which both men were prominent members. Cagliostro's persuasive claims to extraordinary healing skills and alchemical powers won him an international following. The sculptor shows him gazing skyward, his lips parted as if in communion with the heavens, suggesting the personality that could persuade devotees of his ability to perform miraculous cures, conduct mystic Egyptian rites, and turn base metals into gold. The collar falling restlessly open was typical of portraits of artists and scholars, while the double chin and straining buttons betray a taste for the opulent life.
- Title: Giuseppe Balsamo, Comte di Cagliostro
- Creator: Jean-Antoine Houdon
- Date Created: 1786
- Physical Dimensions: overall without base: 62.9 x 58.9 x 34.3 cm (24 3/4 x 23 3/16 x 13 1/2 in.) gross weight: 285 lb. (129.275 kg)
- Provenance: Possibly (sale, Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 22-24 November 1826, no. 208, as _Un Buste en marbre de Cagliostro par M. Houdon_).[1] Sir Richard Seymour-Conway, 4th marquess of Hertford [1800-1870], London and Paris; by inheritance to his illegitimate son, Sir Richard Wallace [1818-1890], London and Paris; by inheritance to his wife, Julie-Amélie-Charlotte Castelnau, Lady Wallace [1819-1897], Paris and London; by bequest to the Wallace's secretary and adviser, Sir John Murray Scott [1847-1912], London and Paris; by bequest to his friend, Josephine Victoria Sackville-West, Lady Sackville [1864-1936], Paris; sold 1914 to (Jacques Seligmann & Cie, Paris and New York);[2] purchased February 1952 by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, New York;[3] gift 1952 to NGA. [1] Anne L. Poulet, _Jean-Antoine Houdon: Sculptor of the Enlightenment_, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Musée et domaine national du château de Versailles, Washington, D.C., 2003: 125. [2] The direct transfer from Sir John Murray Scott to Lady Sackville and then to Jacques Seligmann is described in Germain Seligman's book _Merchants of Art_, New York, 1961: 98-99. The sculpture was Seligmann Paris stock no. 7969 and New York stock no. 2205 (Archives of American Art, Seligmann Papers, NY Stock Catalogues, Box 280, folder 8, copy in NGA curatorial files). Germain Seligmann, manager of Seligmann's New York branch, is listed as the owner in the catalogue of the 1932 exhibition of French art in London, and in Robert Cecil's 1950 article, "The Remainder of the Hertford and Wallace Collections," _Burlington Magazine_, XCII (June 1950): 170, no. 24. The bust was in Paris when the Nazis invaded in 1940 and was confiscated with other portions of the Seligmann family collections at that time. It was recovered and returned to France in 1947. Correspondence concerning Germain Seligmann's efforts to have the bust shipped from France to the United States beginning in 1948 can be found in the Seligmann papers, Archives of American Art, Box 141 (copies in NGA curatorial files). [3] The invoice for the purchase of the bust was included with a letter of 8 February 1952 from Seligmann's New York branch to the Kress Foundation (copy in NGA curatorial files). The bust was sent to Washington from New York a week later.
- Medium: marble
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