Noël Desenfans

Noël Desenfans

Noël Desenfans (* December 1744 in Avesnes-sur-Helpe , France , † July 8, 1807 in London ) was an English art dealer. Together with Francis Bourgeois he laid the foundation for the collection of the Dulwich Picture Gallery in London.

Life

Desenfans first studied in Douai and Paris and tried his hand as a playwright. In 1769 he settled as a language teacher in London, where he married the wealthy Margaret Morris (1731-1813) in 1776. Financially secure through the marriage, Desenfans began to work in the art trade. For over thirty years he worked primarily with the French art dealer Jean-Baptiste-Pierre Lebrun (1748–1813). Desenfans presented themselves to society more as an art lover than as a determined dealer. He decorated his private house with an extensive selection of paintings and kept in close contact with the art and literature scene.

Francis Bourgeois and Noël Desenfans

By 1776 at the latest, he was a patron of Francis Bourgeois (1756–1811), an English landscape painter who had lived in the house since that year and supported Desen fans in the art trade.

In 1790 the Polish King Stanislaus II commissioned August Poniatowski Desenfans and Bourgeois to put together an art collection for the Polish court. Despite the turmoil of the French Revolution and the associated First Coalition War , the two traveled across Europe from 1790–95 and acquired a total of 190 important works of art. However, her assignment ended when her client abdicated as a result of the Third Partition of Poland and was no longer interested in the collection. With his death in 1798, the last hope of handing over the paintings and getting the money back - Desenfans himself is said to have given a sum of nine thousand pounds - was extinguished. Attempts to get the money from the Russian tsar failed, as did the plan he submitted to the British government in 1799, namely to establish a national gallery. Even an auction in 1802 did not generate the desired income.

In 1803 Desenfans seems to have withdrawn from the business due to illness. On October 8, 1803 he drew up his will: his wife and bourgeois should get his property together, the art collection with around 350 works he bequeathed bourgeois alone.

Desenfans died on July 8, 1807. He was first buried in a mausoleum on his property at Portland Place in London. After the completion of the mausoleum in the Dulwich Picture Gallery, his bones were moved there along with those of his wife Margaret and those of Bourgeois.

literature

• Dennis Farr: Desenfans, Noel Joseph (1744-1807) . Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, Sept. 2004; online edn (only accessible to registered persons), January 2008

Web links

• Dulwich Picture Gallery