British - Noel Desenfans - Google Art Project

Noël Desenfans (December 1741 – 8 July 1807) was a French-born art dealer mainly active in Britain, most notable for laying the foundation for the

Dulwich Picture Gallery Dulwich Picture Gallery is an art gallery in Dulwich, South London, which opened to the public in 1817. It was designed by Regency architect Sir John Soane using an innovative and influential method of illumination. Dulwich is the oldest publi ...

in London alongside the landscape painter

Francis Bourgeois Sir Peter Francis Lewis Bourgeois RA (November 1753 – 8 January 1811) was a landscape painter and history painter, and court painter to king George III of the United Kingdom. In the late 18th century he became an art dealer and collector in ...

Life

Born in

Avesnes-sur-Helpe Avesnes-sur-Helpe (; vls, Avenne aan de Helpe) is a commune in the Nord department in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the Nord department. It is situated 14 km from the Belgian border, and 18 km south of Maubeuge, the near ...

and studying in

Douai Douai (, , ,; pcd, Doï; nl, Dowaai; formerly spelled Douay or Doway in English) is a city in the Nord département in northern France. It is a sub-prefecture of the department. Located on the river Scarpe some from Lille and from Arras, D ...

and

Paris Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...

, he initially aimed to become a playwright but in 1769 instead settled in London to become a language teacher. There, in 1776, he married the wealthy Margaret Morris (1731–1813), sister of Sir John Morris of Claremont, Glamorganshire. That wealth allowed him to enter the art trade, a sphere first suggested to him by his buying a

Claude Claude may refer to: __NOTOC__ People and fictional characters * Claude (given name), a list of people and fictional characters * Claude (surname), a list of people * Claude Lorrain (c. 1600–1682), French landscape painter, draughtsman and etcher ...

and selling it on to

George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

, though he always presented himself more as an art lover than a determined dealer, decorating his home with a wide selection of paintings and keeping in touch with the literary and artistic scene. For over thirty years he mainly worked with the French dealer

Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Le Brun (1748 – 7 August 1813) was a French painter, art collector and art dealer. Simon Denis was his pupil. Life Born in Paris, he was the son of the painter Pierre Le Brun, who was himself a great-nephew of another pa ...

(1748–1813). By 1776 at the latest he was a patron of Bourgeois, who moved into Desenfans's home that year and assisted him in his art dealing. In 1790 the pair were commissioned by Stansilaus II August Poniatowski to form an art collection for his court in Poland and despite the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

and the ensuing wars they were able to travel across Europe in 1790–1795 collecting 190 works. However, the

Third Partition of Poland The Third Partition of Poland (1795) was the last in a series of the Partitions of Poland–Lithuania and the land of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth among Prussia, the Habsburg monarchy, and the Russian Empire which effectively ended Polish ...

led to Stanislaus's abdication and loss of interest in the project, with his death in 1798 extinguishing the last hope of payment for them (Desenfans is said to have personally ploughed £9,000 into the project). Desenfans offered them as a British national gallery in 1799, publishing "A Plan, preceded by a Short Review of the Fine Arts" in support of this proposal, but was turned down. Attempts to sell the collection to the Tsar of Russia failed and an 1802 auction proved unprofitable, though for that sale he did produce a two-volume "Descriptive Catalogue" of the works. Desenfans seems to have withdrawn from art dealing in 1803 due to illness, drawing up his will on 8 October that year, leaving the rest of his property to Bourgeois and his wife but around 350 paintings to Bourgeois alone. He died in London in 1807 and was initially buried in a mausoleum on his property on

Portland Place Portland Place is a street in the Marylebone district of central London. Named after the Third Duke of Portland, the unusually wide street is home to BBC Broadcasting House, the Chinese and Polish embassies, the Royal Institute of British A ...

in London, before being reinterred at the new picture gallery in Dulwich alongside Bourgeois and his wife.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Desenfans, Noel category:1744 births category:1807 deaths category:French art dealers category:French art historians People from Nord (French department)