313. * Michel Romagnesi (Paris 1731-1813) Portrait de Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny (1733-1777) signé 'Romagnesi.' (sur le livre, en bas à gauche) huile sur toile signed 'Romagnesi.' (on book, lower left) oil on canvas 43.6 x 34.6cm (17 3/16 x 13 5/8in). Provenance Collection of Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny (1733-1777), château de Montigny-Lencoup, thence by descent to Charles-Louis Trudaine (1764-1794) or Charles-Michel Trudaine (1766-1794) thence by descent to his widow Marie-Josèphe-Louise Micault de Courbeton (died in 1802) Collection of William Lowther, 2nd Earl of Lonsdale (1787-1872), 14 Carlton House Terrace, thence by descent to his nephew Henry Lowther, 3rd Earl of Lonsdale (1818-1876), thence by descent to William, 5th Earl of Lonsdale, 14 Carlton House Terrace His sale, Christie's London, 18 June 1887, lot 875 (150 gns to Agnew) With Agnews (according to a label on the reverse) Archibald John Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847-1929) Albert Edward Harry Meyer Archibald Primrose, 6th Earl of Rosebery, Mentmore Towers His Sale, Sotheby's London, 25 May 1977 lot 2453 Sale, Christie's London, 10 July 1987, lot 150 (as a Portrait of Etienne-Francois de Choiseul) Private Collection, Switzerland Literature R. Butler, Choiseul, I, Father and Son 1719-1754, 1980, ill. Country Life, 1987, vol. 181, p. 138 The present work was formerly thought to be a portrait of Etienne-François de Choiseul-Beaupré-Stainville (1719-1785), however Greta Kaucher has now identified the sitter as Jean-Charles-Philibert Trudaine de Montigny (1733-1777), a renowned chemist. Here the sitter is depicted three-quarter length in elegant costume, and seated in a red satin gilded wooden fauteuil à la reine in his cabinet in Montigny-Lencoup. His cabinet is adorned with beautiful pieces clearly showing his interest for science, with the gilded claw compass held in his right hand and the important vacuum pump, after the design by L'Abbe Jean-Antoine Nollet, with a lacquered wooden base with gilded fillets and a glass bell, beside him. From a French-Italian family of military and theatrical fame, Michel Romagnesi was a pupil of Robert Le Vrac de Tournières (1667-1752) and had been a member of the Académie de Saint Luc in Paris since 1766 as Peintre Sculpteur but little else is known about his life. Very few works by Romagnesi are recorded but there is an altarpiece in the chapel of the hospital in Dax, representing the Apotheosis of Saint Vincent de Paul, and a Portrait of Claude-Alexandre de Villeneuve de Vence (1702-1760) given to Romagnesi or his Master Levrac Tournières, which was with Galerie Gismondi in 1990, listed in the Louvre documentation.