Jean-Baptiste Boudard

Exhibited by Steinitz Gallery

Material White Carrara marble

Dimensions 59 × 31 × 28 cm

Place of Creation Parma

Status Vetted

About the Work

The bust of Doctor Théodore Tronchin, executed in the “antique taste”, was commissioned in November 1764 by the Ancianat or Council of the Elders of the City of Parma, of which Count Aurelio Bernieri was then decurion, at the same time as a gold medal, voted the 2nd of the same month, in order to celebrate what was then considered an immense achievement of the physician: the successful variolization, or deliberate inoculation with smallpox, of the young Prince Ferdinand of Bourbon-Parma (1751-1802), son of Philip I (1720-1765), Duke of Parma, and Louise-Élisabeth de France (1727-1759), known as Madame Infante, eldest daughter of Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska, who had passed away five years earlier. Intended to adorn the assembly hall within the communal palace of Parma, situated at the south-east corner of what is now Piazza Garibaldi, this bust, described as an “erma-ritratto”, was, just as the medal, commissioned by the Council from Jean-Baptiste Boudard, a French artist who had held the position of sculptor to His Royal Highness since 1749, after attracting the attention of the banker Claude Bonnet, financial advisor to the Duke, and being engaged at court on 1 December 1748, by Guillaume du Tillot (1711-1774), intendant général de la maison royale of Bourbon-Parme.

According to Marco Pellegri, the bust of the communal palace of Parma disappeared without leaving a trace, however, citing a list drawn up by the sculptor himself enumerating the works he produced in the studio he occupied in Parma in the Rochetta building, located in the west wing of the Palazzo della Pilotta, it appears that Boudard executed two busts of Doctor Tronchin: “22 statue di marmo ivi compreso il Gruppo del Sileno; 17 pezzi in gesso o terracotta; 7 camini in marmo; 13 piedistalli e 3 colonne con dei busti; la tomba del Principe d’Armstadt; i 2 busti di M. Tronchin; ‘et mon livre’”. Entirely unknown, the bust presented here, signed and dated on the reverse THEODORE TRONCHIN / PAR J. B. BOUDARD A PARME 1765, constitutes one of these two busts. It is the example kept by Doctor Tronchin himself; the one he very likely took with him to Geneva, where it remained after his permanent relocation to Paris in 1766, after accepting the position of first physician to Duke Louis-Philippe d'Orléans (1725-1785), father of Philippe Égalité (1747-1793), and which then remained by succession within his descendants in Switzerland, decorating until today the sixteenth-century gallery or armory of the Tronchin family property at Bessinge, between Cologny and Vandœuvres, near Geneva.

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Provenance

Executed in 1764-1765 by the sculptor Jean-Baptiste Boudard for Doctor Tronchin, who brought it back with him to Geneva upon his return from Parma; collection of Doctor Tronchin, then by descent and succession, collection of François Tronchin; collection of Robert Tronchin; placed in the sixteenth-century gallery or armory of the Tronchin family estate at Bessinge, between Cologny and Vandœuvres, near Geneva; collection of the industrialist Xavier Givaudan (1867-1966), who acquired the Tronchin estate at Bessinge in 1938, after having rented it for several years; then by descent in the Givaudan family until today.

Literature

Charles Nisard, Guillaume Du Tillot, Un valet ministre et secrétaire d’Etat, Paris, 1887, p. 28-52; Jules Crosnier, “Bessinge. Nos Anciens et leurs Œuvres”, Recueil genevois d'Art, Geneva, 1908, p. 59; Marco Pelligri, G.B. Boudard, statuario francese alla Real Corte di Parma, Parma, 1976, p. 41, 132-133 and 204-205.