Portrait of Natalie de Laborde at The Réunion des Musées Nationaux, Paris

myminifactory

Augustin Pajou's portrait of a dreamy young woman is unaware that she is living her last moments of innocence before a tragic destiny unfolds. He sculpted the daughter of Farmer General Jean-Joseph de Laborde just one year prior to her marriage to Count Charles de Noailles, future Duke de Mouchy. The model's beauty and Pajou's execution make this sculpture one of the most beautiful female portraits in 18th-century art. This stunning terracotta portrait, sculpted in 1789, depicts the daughter of Farmer General Jean-Joseph de Laborde, a wealthy banker and art enthusiast, just before her marriage to Count Charles de Noailles, who would later become Duke de Mouchy. We see similar traits in Pajou's marble sculpture, Nathalie de Laborde in Filial Piety (private collection), designed for the park at Méréville, a masterpiece of 18th-century landscape gardening created by painter Hubert Robert for de Laborde. Following his master, Jean-Baptiste II Lemoyne, Pajou sculpted numerous portrait busts of women. The portrait shows a very young and serious-looking woman, still barely more than a child. Pajou's modeling captures her uniform features and smooth skin, which contrast with her thick hair, skillfully arranged and tied with a ribbon. Nathalie's sideways gaze gives her a dreamy look. These are the last moments of calm and innocence for a young woman whose tragic destiny would end in madness. She was imprisoned during the Terror after her husband fled the country, and her father and most of her husband's family were executed by guillotine. Freed in 1794, she traveled to England to join her husband, only to find him living with a mistress. He attempted to rid himself of her by arranging an intrigue with one of his friends. Indignant, she returned to France, where she led a dissolute existence. In 1805, she met Chateaubriand, with whom she had a passionate and stormy affair that ended in 1812. Already mentally unstable, she lost her reason definitively during the Hundred Days, a turbulent period that rekindled the anxiety of the Revolution. She spent the last twenty years of her life in a mental asylum. This bust's elegant simplicity and Pajou's execution make it one of the most beautiful female portraits in 18th-century sculpture. Formerly in the Deutsch de la Meurthe collection, it was purchased by the Louvre at auction in 1991. It joined another magnificent female portrait by Pajou, his bust of the famous portrait painter Elisabeth Vigée-LeBrun. This object is part of "Scan The World", a non-profit initiative introduced by MyMiniFactory, through which we are creating a digital archive of fully 3D printable sculptures, artworks and landmarks from across the globe for the public to access for free. Scan the World is an open source community effort; if you have interesting items around you and would like to contribute, email stw@myminifactory.com to find out how you can help. Scanned using Photogrammetry (Processed using Agisoft PhotoScan)