A delightful portrait of a small dog made a royal display this morning at Sotheby’s, where it sold for $279,400 including fees, almost 56 times its high estimate of $5,000. Late 18th century oil painting by Jacques Barthélémy Delamarre is thought to be a representation Marie-Antoinette’s “Pompon”, one of the many canine companions of the Queen of France. Mystery surrounds the subject of the portrait, but little is known about the artist as well.
Jacques Barthélémy Delamarre was admitted to the Académie de St-Luc in Paris in 1777 and painted in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Besides these facts, Elisabeth Lobkowicz, Old Masters specialist at Sotheby’s, said Hyperallergicall that is known is that Delamarre’s small body of work almost exclusively depicts versions of this exact dog and other small pets, including cats and rabbits.
Delamarre de Pompon’s other portraits show the dog eating biscuits and lounging on a lush red cushion. Lobkowicz said that although these compositions have historically been considered to depict Pompon, this notion has not been confirmed with certainty.
Lobkowicz said the dog’s breed also remains a topic of discussion: “Is it a poodle? Is it a King Charles Spaniel? Or is it another toy breed altogether? What we do know is that “Pompon” sported a ridiculous hairstyle, much like the famous ones present by Marie Antoinette.
Antoinette’s house at Versailles was filled with pets including cats and monkeys. Antoinette belonged little puppies until her execution in 1793. She even owned a kennel of gold velvet and silk, now in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
According to a tag on the back of Delamarre’s painting, the last time the work was auctioned was in 1986, when Bonhams offered it with an estimate of $3,000 to $5,000.
