Important Spring Sale presents Louis Gauffier

Bukowskis presents General portrait of Jean-Claude Moreau (1755-1828) with Florence in the background by Louis Gauffier at the seasons largest live auction – Important Spring Sale.

There has been some uncertainty regarding whom the portrait depicts. When a variant, previously in J.E. Safra's collection, was sold at Sotheby’s in 2011 (New York, 26 Jan 2011, lot. no. 50), it was stated to represent Jean-Claude Moreau (1755-1828), one of Napoleon's generals. And when the auction's portrait was sold at Bukowskis in 1946, it was said to depict "General Michaud," i.e., Claude-Ignace-Francois Michaud (1751-1835), another of Napoleon's generals. However, this is less likely since Michaud, at the time the portrait was painted (1800/1801), was a general, and the depicted individual is shown as a brigade commander. Furthermore, Michaud was not in Florence at the time of the depiction but in Lombardy in northern Italy. It can therefore be concluded with a high degree of certainty that the auction's portrait depicts "General Jean-Claude Moreau" and not Michaud. Moreau was appointed general in 1803, and later that year, he was made a knight of the Legion of Honour, an order that Napoleon had established the year before.

Both the portrait sold at Sotheby’s and the auction piece were painted in the same year, 1800/01, when Moreau was a brigade commander in the infantry and stationed in Italy. In the auction's portrait, he wears the Legion of Honour on his chest, an order he received only in 1803, by which time the artist was already deceased. In other words, this order must have been added later. The same applies to the plume of the uniform hat. This may indicate that the auction's portrait was intended as his private one.

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