DE TROY (Jean-François) - VALORY (Jules-Hippolyte, Chevalier de). Recueil d'airs sérieux et bachiques. 1721-1723. In-8 oblong (197 x 125 mm). Blue morocco, 3 fillets on the covers, red morocco lining with lace, 5-ribbed spine with gilt title RECUEIL D'AIRS, gilt edges (period binding). Elegant manuscript collection of songs with notated music, consisting of 114 ff. formerly paginated from 1 to 227 and 18 additional leaves for drawings and tables. The 144 airs for one, two or three voices, listed in the final tables, are divided into 10 sections: Airs tendres (20), Duo tendres (10), Airs bachiques (30), Duo bachiques (12), Duo paysans (7), Papillons (12), Pastorales (12), Airs italiens (11), Trio (6), and Vaudevilles (24). The airs, anonymous (except for an air by Cotereau on p. 145), all in French except for the Italian airs, are taken notably from the Recueil d'airs serieux et a boire de differents autheurs, published annually from 1695 to 1724 by Christophe Ballard, whose tables are organised into two sections, one serious, the other bachique. From 1650-1660, the air de cour gradually gave way to what was soon to be called the air sérieux. Then "the poetic registers were decompartmentalised when amorous themes crept into the bachique pieces... The authors summoned Cupid and Bacchus... The pastoral theme emerged, whereas it had previously been almost absent from the collections" (R. Bourcerie, La Musique sous l'empire de Bacchus au XVIIe siècle, 2024, p. 265-268). The main interest of the collection lies in its TEN INDEED FULL-PAGE DRAWINGS, DATED 1721 TO 1723, framed in Indian ink (average size 10 x 15.7 cm). The first drawing, at the head of the volume, contains the title (RECUEIL D'AIRS SERIEUX ET BACHIQUES) placed in a cartouche dated 1721. It is the only drawing signed, twice, lower left: in the frame JH f[ecit] and outside the frame DE TROY Inv. A satyr seen from behind, with two loves at his feet, contemplates a seaside landscape. On the shore, antique vases, a score and musical instruments (7-string bass viol, viola da gamba and traverso). Drawings 2 to 9 are placed at the head of the main divisions of the manuscript. TENDER AIRS: Drawing 2, opposite page 1, dated 1721. A reclining singer reading a score, in a mountain landscape with a waterfall. BACHIC AIRS: Drawing 3, opposite page 21, dated 1721. A satyr-terme and Pan reclining share libations in a cave setting, on either side of a bench. A flute on the bench and Pan's flute on the ground. BACHIC DUO: Drawing 4, opposite page 69, dated 1723. A couple of musicians, a violist (bass viol with 7 strings) and a flutist, playing in a country setting, a child holding a score for them and two children seated on the floor reading another volume of tunes. PAPILLONS: Drawing 5, opposite p. 101, dated 1723. A couple of peasants dancing in a rustic landscape. PASTORALES: Drawing 6, p. 144, dated 1723. A round of three shepherdesses and a shepherd with their dog and shepherd's attributes under a tree, in a landscape of woods and meadows. The flock of sheep observes a couple of lovers in the background on the right. Small tear of 1 cm in the upper margin. ITALIAN AIRS: Drawing 7, preceding p. 161, undated. A musician in a cloudy landscape, a viol overcoat at her feet, under a veil formed by a score with Italian text held by a child, a lover and another child playing at her feet. TRIO: Drawing 8, opposite p. 177, dated 1722. Two scantily clad lovers lying on a canvas on the grass. Antique-style accessories and figures (vase, square column surmounted by a broken pot of which the young woman is holding a fragment, faun overturning his staff, Cupid (or rather Hymen) flying towards a group of 4 lovers (the Desired Instant...). VAUDEVILLES: Drawing 9, opposite p. 193, with the title Chansons nouvelles and the date 1723 in a cartouche. A violinist on trestles in front of the equestrian statue of Henri IV on the Pont-Neuf is accompanied by a young singer and a couple distributing vaudevilles or satirical songs to the public. In the background, the Palais de la Cité, the Sainte-Chapelle (?) and Notre-Dame. The tenth and final drawing, before the Tables, bears the date 1721 inscribed in a cartouche and reveals the identity of the manuscript's recipient: a laurelled young woman seated under a tree, leaning on sheet music, is holding the heraldic eagles supporting the coloured arms of Louis-Guy-Henry, Marquis de Valory (quarterly 1 and 4 Sable an eagle displayed Argent ... 2 and 3 Or a laurel eradicated Vert). Narrow vertical wetness in the centre of the design and small lack of material in one of the 4 compartments of the shield. THE MANUSCRIPT WAS EXECUTED ON THE OCCASION OF THE MARRIAGE OF HENRIETTE FRANÇOISE LE CAMUS AND GUY LOUIS HENRI, MARQUIS DE VALORY ON 24 JULY 1721. It was completed between 1721 and 1723. The Tables of the different sections occupy 5 leaves at the end of the volume, each in a frame and with different ornaments appropriate to the subject (Cupid's bow and torches, a procession of Bacchic lovers, a shepherd's dog and accessories, a couple of lovers whose wife plays the 5-string baroque guitar - Louis XIV's favourite instrument). The first Table, Airs tendres, is signed V[alory] inv. and Pinx. JH FECIT, DE TROY INVENIT The somewhat enigmatic double signature on the first drawing gives the key to the whole, which was created by an amateur artist, the chevalier de Valory - based on an idea by the great painter Jean-François de Troy, whose pupil he was and whose eulogy he gave to the Académie in 1762. On the other hand, it was without de Troy's help that Valory produced the ornamented Tables at the end of the volume. JEAN-FRANÇOIS DE TROY (Paris 1679-Rome 1752) "is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant artists of his generation. He painted a great deal...If J-F. de Troy's paintings are legion, his drawings are rare (Pierre Rosenberg, "Jean-François de Troy dessinateur", Revue du Louvre, 1995, nº 5-6, p. 58-72). The son of portrait painter François de Troy (1645-1730), who encouraged him to visit Italy from 1699 to 1706, he then entered the Académie, where he was appointed professor in 1719. Although his first official commissions came later than our drawings (1724: first commission from the Bâtiments du roi, 1725: commission from the City of Paris), the young man, who had moved from his family's studio to social circles, excelled in the register of the gallant painter, with mythological scenes (Bacchus and Ariadne, 1717) and those "fashion paintings whose genre he introduced to French painting in the eighteenth century" (Colin Bailey, Les Amours des dieux. Mythological painting from Watteau to David, Paris, 1991). Let us follow Christophe Leribault's book (Jean-François de Troy, 1679-1752, Paris, Arthena, 2002) to briefly summarise his career. "Faced with the weakness of official patronage, de Troy turned to the most solvent clientele of the time, that of financiers. According to the Chevalier de Valory, who shows a certain disdain for this world, the painter was encouraged by his advantageous appearance: "he trained himself in the customs of good company and acquired a noble ease which made him welcome everywhere in a distinguished manner. [...] The luxury of Mr Bernard's house, or to put it better, the pleasures, fixed his assiduities there" [...]. Samuel Bernard was not the only financier from whom de Troy received important decorative commissions. Alongside the wealthy clientele he found for his mythological paintings, de Troy drew a new artistic inspiration from his regular attendance at social salons, illustrating the elegant life. [...] De Troy was to produce in 1724, with the Declaration of Love and the Detached Garter, much more ambitious paintings because they include [...] an intrigue [...] It is noteworthy that at the time when, in 1725, de Troy was renewing the genre scene by introducing an anecdote, he also provided some illustrations for an edition of Voltaire [...]. In any case, in the decade between 1730 and 1740, which marked the artist's full maturity, De Troy painted no more than a dozen genre scenes. But this limited production includes almost only masterpieces, such as the Reading of Molière and its counterpart, [...] the Oyster Luncheon, also in 1735, and the Hunting Luncheon in 1737 (C. Leribault, chapter II, passim). "It was through the illustration of a literary work, La Henriade, that the artist first had to apply himself to this quest for a certain verisimilitude. The work, which was so famous in the past that it is still known today even though it has not yet been read, was not published until 1728 in London, but the illustrations that accompanied its sumptuous first edition had been conceived as early as 1722-1723" (C. Leribault p. 78 and P. 100-104). The drawing of the Pont-Neuf should be compared with the contemporary work for the Henriade (and the Allégorie de la Paix). Finally, it is worth noting the painter's taste for music, which probably ran in his family (cf. the Portrait of Elisabeth Jacquet de La Guerre by her father), as shown by these female musicians painted around 1715 and the Portrait of the musician Boucon (Leribault, P 35-38). JULES-HIPPOLYTE FECIT: THE CHEVALIER DE VALORY Jules-Hippolyte de Valory (1696-1785), knight of the royal and military order of Saint-Louis, former captain of grenadiers in the marine regiment, is often confused with his elder brother the marquis de Valory. The memoir on de Troy read in 1762 by Wattelet at the Académie is indeed due to the Chevalier. It is he, and not his brother, the "fat marquis" of Frederick II, who is portrayed by Carmontelle (Rochelle Ziskin, Private salons and the art world of Enlightenment Paris, Brill, 2023, p. 66 and passim for the rest). According to Mariette, he had been a pupil of Jean-François de Troy: "Valory (Jules-Hippolyte de), chevalier de St Louis, amateur honoraire, learned to draw and even to paint from de Troy the son" (Abecedario, V, p. 362). His activity as an amateur draughtsman and engraver, which earned him admission to the Académie in 1747, is attested to by a portfolio kept at the Estampes (SNR-1/VALORY, two engravings after Boucher). It must have been more important: "Le chevalier de Valory : œuvre assez important, suite de petits Paysages à l'eau-forte, 12 p.; divers petits sujets d'après Boucher, étude de femme d'après Watteau, etc." (Portalis and Beraldi, Les graveurs du dix-huitième siècle. T. 3, p. 340). He is cited as Le Maire de Valory by Neil Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, online edition, Iconographical genealogies. The Chevalier de Valory was a regular member of Mme Doublet's salon, known as "La Paroisse", and most of the information about him comes from Bachaumont, who bequeathed him two small landscapes by Immenraet: his friendship with Crozat de Thiers, who welcomed him to the Château de Tugny, with the La Live family, and with Octavie Belot, the future President Durey de Meinières, who owned a number of miniature paintings by the Chevalier. Rousseau condemned his affair with "mademoiselle d'Ette, who was considered wicked, and who lived with the chevalier de Valory, who was not considered good... I believe that the relationship between these two people did Madame d'Épinay a great disservice" (Confessions). Recommended by Bachaumont, he entered the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture in 1747 as a free associate ("Jules-Hippolyte Le Maire, chevalier de Valory, virtuoso"), and was appointed amateur on 7 September 1765. Was it in this context that he set about eulogising the man who had been his master? Valory had apparently maintained good relations with de Troy, who had become director of the Académie de France in Rome. A letter dated 16 June 1749 from Sainte-Palaye to Bachaumont and Madame Doublet bears witness to this: "Today my brother and I have been to Mr de Troy's house...with whom we have drunk some very good Burgundy wine to your health; you and all your friends, especially Mr de Valory, have reviewed our conversation". WHAT ROLE DID THE MASTER PLAY IN THIS COLLABORATION? PROBABLY JEAN-FRANCOIS DE TROY PROVIDED THE SUBJECTS AND INVENTIONS. HE DOES NOT SEEM TO HAVE BEEN INVOLVED IN THE EXECUTION, EXCEPT PERHAPS IN DRAWINGS 3 AND 10. THE MANUSCRIPT IS A REMARKABLE WITNESS OF A PERIOD, THE REGENCE, AND OF THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN AMATEURS AND ARTISTS IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY UNDER THE Aegis OF THE ROYAL ACADEMY (Charlotte Guichard, "Amateurs and the culture of etching", in Artists and Amateurs: Etching in Eighteenth-Century France, Metropolitan Museum , Yale university press, 2013, p. 136 ff). THE MARQUIS DE VALORY, FRÉDÉRIC II AND VOLTAIRE The manuscript was given as a wedding present by the Chevalier to his elder brother Guy-Louis-Henri, Marquis de Valory (1692-1774), who was marrying a young widow and probably shared her taste for music. A brilliant officer from an ancient family of Italian origin - his father was Vauban's best pupil - in 1739 he swapped a military career for diplomacy. Sent by Cardinal de Fleury to the King of Prussia, the skilful ambassador won the good graces of the crown prince, the future Frederick II, and successfully served French policy at the Berlin court. He accompanied the king on his campaigns in Silesia and Bohemia, before being appointed marshal de camp in 1745. He drew up the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748 and negotiated the Dauphin's marriage to Marie-Josèphe of Saxony. The Marquis de Valory was promoted to lieutenant general on 10 May 1748 and asked to be recalled to Versailles. On his departure, Frederick II gave him his portrait painted by his portraitist Pesne and 180,000 francs. Frederick II wrote to Louis XV about him on 2 May 1750: "The Marquis de Valori knows my soul; for ten years he has been witness to my way of thinking about him. The character of the Marquis de Valori seems to me all the more estimable, because on all occasions I have found him zealous for the interests of Your Majesty, and for his allies, that his candour has never wavered, and that I have had reason to take advantage of the experience that his long service has given him in the military art... If the Marquis de Valori had been in my service, I would certainly have rewarded him for having been useful to me on the most decisive day of my fortune". Frédéric called him "his dear rascal" and wrote a poem about him entitled the Palladion, which he sent to Voltaire - who was very close to the Marquis - who renamed it the Valoriade: "He is a minister of importance/Sent by the most Christian king/And his paunch and his bearing,.../Yet I want to sing with my hoarse voice/This Valori, this famous champion,/Who by the effect of his baroque destiny,/From the Prussians was the Palladion...". Briefly sent to Prussia again in 1756, the Marquis then retired to the Château de Bourgneuf near Étampes, which belonged to his wife, who had inherited it from her first husband, Alphonse de Guérin (killed at the siege of Fribourg in 1713). "When he lived there, he received all the celebrities of the day: princes and princesses from the North who were passing through Paris; his brothers, the Chevalier de Valori, an engineer from Cambrai and the Abbé de Valori, Provost of Lille; his friends Voyer d'Argenson and very often Voltaire [...] Finally, such was the influx of distinguished people who visited there that the Dauphine, mother of King Louis XVI, once said: "The court is going to be deserted, the old Marquis de Valori has just returned to his land at Etampes...". Voltaire often stayed at Le Bourgneuf. One day, he received a blow from a servant called Trinité... This unpleasant adventure happened to Voltaire in a letter addressed to him by Frederick, King of Prussia, in which he says: "I promise you the reading of an epic poem of four thousand lines or thereabouts, of which Valori is the hero and in which only this maid is missing who kindled in your senses seditious fires that her modesty knew how to repress sharply"...". The King of Prussia often joked with his friend about this misadventure, and in another letter in which he urged him to return to his court, he added, to complete his determination, that he was keeping for him 'a nice twenty-year-old Hébé, and not an ill-educated one like Valory's cook'" (Maxime de la Baume, "Le marquis de Valori" (notice biographique, 2008), Corpus Étampois, consulted online). The Marquise died in 1758. The music collection does not appear in the catalogue of the Bourgneuf library drawn up in 1773, nor in the inventory of revolutionary confiscations (consulted at the Arsenal, Ms 5275 and 5394). Prov. Valory (family) - Huquier (dry stamp lower right of title, mark not cited by Lugt), probably Gabriel or his son, most probably in connection with an engraving project - formerly acquired in a French bookseller's catalogue at marked prices with an attribution to J.F. de Troy. MANUSCRIPT VISIBLE BY APPOINTMENT ONLY