Benoît Louis Prévost (1747-1804) Presumed Portrait Of André-jacques Porchon De Bonval Oise

Benoît Louis PRÉVOST
(Paris 1747 - Paris 1804)
Presumed portrait of André-Jacques Porchon de Bonval (1742-1836)
Pen and gray ink, gray wash
H. 185 mm; L. 145 mm [composition]; H. 232mm; L. 177 mm [the sheet]
Around 1795

Related works: Portrait of a child, probably a nephew of our man. Kept together to the present day.

Benoit-Louis Prévost was one of the most assiduous transcribers of the work of Charles-Nicolas Cochin, he engraved more than sixty of his drawings. Among these, he produced the frontispiece engraving of L'Encyclopédie by Diderot and d'Alembert. Prévost was also employed by the abbot of Saint-Non for the illustrations of his Picturesque Voyage which concerns Naples and Sicily... The drawn work of Prévost is quite rare. A few other portraits were sold on the art market and a charming portrait of Madame de Grilleau is kept in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Many similarities between these different leaves are visible. The way of describing the faces and the hair of the models are very similar, the wash technique is the most common, associated with the tight framing of the busts.

The portrait of a child, which has certainly always been preserved with our portrait of a man, gives us several indications. Under the net is written “Prevost fecit. Canettecourt 1795. Apart from the signature, the date and place can give us further information on the identity of these two protagonists. Cannettecourt is a hamlet in the commune of Breuil le Vert in the Oise department. This name even allows us to deduce that the portraits were made in the town and therefore certainly in the manor of the hamlet called "manoir de la Tache", now disappeared and replaced by a small 19th century castle according to a source. In 1784, this seigniory was bought by a Parisian notary who resided there, André Jacques Porchon de Bonval. He was at the restoration mayor of Breuil le Vert, but had no children from his marriage. The track of the portraits of the father and the son is therefore to be eliminated. A nephew aged about five in 1795 is to be assumed, but we have not found his existence. Is the track the right one?