Jean-Louis Laneuville

Jean-Louis Titon La Neuville, called Jean-Louis Laneuville (1748–1826) was a French painter, art dealer and expert. He was a gifted portraitist who made portraits of eminent persons of the French Revolution in a style similar to that of his teacher Jacques-Louis David.

Jean-Louis Laneuville was born in Paris as the natural son of J.B.M. Pierre Titon. His father was a prominent parliamentarian and rapporteur in the ‘’Affair of the Diamond Necklace". Little is known about his early training. He studied, at least briefly, with his contemporary Jacques-Louis David and exhibited at the open-air Exposition de la Jeunesse between 1783 and 1789. He started sending pictures to the official Salon after it was opened for non-academicians in 1791.

During the French Revolution (1789–95) Laneuville appears to have looked for patronage from the powerful political figures of his time. This is demonstrated by the fact that 8 of the 12 portraits he sent to the Salon of 1793 were politicians and in 1795 the numbers were four of the six. It is not clear whether he targeted these politicians because of his own political preferences or because he felt this was an untapped market.

Laneuville portrayed deputies to the Convention, including Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac (1792-3; Kunsthalle Bremen), Pierre-François-Joseph Robert and Joseph Delaunay (1793; Palace of Versailles) and Jules-François Paré (1795; Carnavalet Museum). In 1791 he was elected a judge of the Prix d'Encouragement, and in 1796 signed a petition defending the acquisition of looted artworks.

Laneuville continued to receive private and official portrait commissions during the reign of Napoleon. He was also active as an expert art appraiser and possibly also as an art dealer since his estate included a large number of Old Masters and contemporary French art. Unlike his master David who was exiled in 1814 from France by Louis XVIII as a regicide, Laneuville exhibited work at the Salon until 1817. He may have worked for some time in Brussels as evidenced by the Portrait of Edouard Jean Joseph van de Velde, a member from an important family of Brussels merchants (Auctioned at Dorotheum on 6 October 2009 in Vienna, lot 163).

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