The Houses and Collections of the Marquis de Marigny

Book excerpt: Between 1750 and his death in 1781, the Marquis de Marigny?brother of Madame de Pompadour, courtier to Louis XV, and one of eighteenth-century France's important patrons of art and architecture?amassed a collection that was broad in scope, progressive in taste, and exceptional in quality and provenance. This book offers a transcription of the exhaustive inventory of Marigny's estate together with an essay in which Alden R. Gordon not only sketches Marigny's life and times but also re-creates the interiors and grounds where the paintings, statues, books, household goods, and other property listed in the inventory were displayed and used. Also included are plans of Marigny's last four residences; lists of heirs, paintings, and auction sales; transcriptions of shipping manifests and sales catalogs; indexes; and a glossary.