PIERRE-PAUL PRUD'HON (CLUNY, 1758-PARIS, 1823) PORTRAIT OF CLAUDE BARBIZET ; PORTRAIT OF Mme BARBIZET Pair of pastels Portrait of Claude Barbizet enlarged by 2 CM on the left and 1.8 CM at the top; Portrait of Mme Barbizet enlarged by 2 CM at the top, 1.5 CM on the right and 0.5 on the left A pair of pastels, slightly enlarged 39 x 32 CM - 15,4 x 12,6 IN. Provenance - Portrait of Monsieur Claude Barbizet: Collections Roux, Mme Demazière, in Dijon in 1907; Collection Adrien Charton. - Portrait of Mrs Claude Barbizet: Collection of Mr Gilbert Roux, in Gray. - Always remained in the family of models, in different branches and reunited in the 20th century. Exhibition Prud'hon, Paris, Palais des Beaux-Arts de la ville de Paris, May-June 1922, n° 71 and n° 72. Bibliography R. Jean, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 1907, t. II, p. 279-282 (Portrait de Mr et de Mme ?) ; J. Guiffrey, L'œuvre de P.-P. Prud'hon, Paris, 1924, nos. 416 and 417 (executed between 1794 and 1796 in Gray, Haute-Saône); Catalogue of the exhibition Prud'hon ou le rêve du bonheur, Paris, Galerie nationales du Grand Palais, 23 September 1997 - 12 January 1998 and New York, The Metropolitan Museum, 2 March - 7 June 1998, quoted under no. 55; N. Jeffares, Dictionary of pastellists before 1800, London, 2006, cited p. 427 and website consulted in March 2024 n° J.604.102 and J.604.103 and J.604.104. The pastels were painted during Prud'hon's stay in Gray, Haute-Saône, from 1794 to 1796. They are similar to the Portrait of Claude-Anatoile Prieur, known as Perron (48.5 x 38 CM) in the Baron Martin Museum in Gray (see exhibition catalogue no. 55). J.-P. Voïart (J.-P. Voïart, Notice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages de P. P. Prud'hon, peintre, membre de la Légion d'honneur et de l'Institut, 1824, p. 13-14) writes that Prud'hon painted a large number of portraits in "Rigny, near Gray, both in oils and pastels, admirable for their talent and truth, all remarkable for their resemblance and the freshness of the colouring". Sylvain Laveissière, author of the catalogue of the 1997-1998 exhibition, points out that "the blessed period of the portrait was the stay in Franche-Comté, where Prud'hon had "put himself in the green" and worked quietly on the precious illustrative drawings for which Pierre Didot paid him a salary". After his portrait was painted, Monsieur Barbizet became a printer. When he died in 1826, his wife, Jean Françoise Lhomme, took over the printing business. They had three children.