Presumably commissioned by Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, Marquis de Marigny, on the occasion of his marriage to the sitter in 1767, and exhibited at the Salon of that year;
Louis Adame, Paris, 1909;
H. de Conegliano, Paris;
Thereafter in a private collection, Alsace;
From whom acquired by Verner Amell, Stockholm, circa 2005;
By whom sold to the present owner.

Paris, Le Salon, 1767, no. 46;
Paris, Cent portraits de femmes des écoles anglaises et françaises, 1909, no. 91.

G.W. Lundberg, Roslin, vol. I, Malmö 1957, p. 96, vol. II, reproduced plate 80, vol. III, pp. 47-8, cat. no. 256;
G.W. Lundberg, "Roslin, Alexander", in Svenskt konstnärs-lexikon, vol. IV, Malmö 1961, p. 530;
J. Seznec, J. Adhémar, Salons/Diderot. 3. 1767, Oxford 1963, pp. 25-6, 172, reproduced fig. 35;
P. Lemonnier, "Alexandre Roslin. Un portraitiste au siècle des lumières", in L'estampille - L'objet d'art, vol. II, no. 234, Dijon, March 1990, p. 83;
D. Diderot, Ouevres complètes de Diderot. Diderot on Art. II. The Salon of 1767, New Haven/London 1995, pp. 134 ff;
S. Westerlund Petersson, Roslin och Diderot: en studie av salongskritiken 1761-1771, third semester paper, Konstvetenskapliga institutionen Uppsala universitet, Uppsala 2003, pp. 40ff, 63;
M. Olausson et al., Alexander Roslin, exhibition catalogue, Stockholm and Versailles 2007-08, pp. 33, 131, cat. no. 12, reproduced p. 182.

 

"The following condition report has been provided by Sarah Walden, an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has a fairly old lining and stretcher, both strong. The texture has been affected in places by the lining, sometimes imprinting the canvas weave into the paint. However there are no accidental damages at all and the slight natural impasto remains intact elsewhere. The edges have been extended all round, with a fairly wide band of retouching along the base edge, and more variable narrower retouching at the other edges. The darker blue shadows in the drapery of the chair and cushion have been strengthened, and there are one or two little retouchings in the white sleeves, in particular on the left over a small patch of paint with a rather distorted canvas texture. An area with similarly accentuated texture in the centre of the chest has also been lightly retouched over. Some of the craquelure in the face has been slightly muted, and the more shadowy background on the right has frequent strengthening touches. This darker background is rather thinner while the lighter background to the left is strong and unworn. The soft rather pastel tone is well preserved with some finely intact areas such as the book. A pentiment of the open book across the knee can be seen to the right. The head is still in rather good condition as is much of the drapery. This report was not done under laboratory conditions."
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

This refreshingly informal portrait, which depicts the Marquise de Marigny in her deshabillé de matin, looking up momentarily from her book, was exhibited at the Salon of 1767. There it received widespread praise in the reviews of the exhibition: L'Année littéraire noted "la grâce de son coloris aimable; sa touche légère et vraie", L'Avant Coureur admired "sa beauté" while Le Mercure, according to Seznec (see Literature) was 'dithyrambique', or eulogistic, in its praise for the portrait.¹ Only Diderot, Roslin's constant antagonist, reserved criticism for it; while he praised "l'effet d'une couleur agréable" he was less enthusiastic about "la tête tourmontée", "la figure [qui] s'affaisse" and "l'air mannequiné" of the sitter, which are perhaps slights on the appearance of the sitter, rather than the painting itself.²

Although exhibited by Roslin at the Salon as Le portrait de Madame la Marquise de ^***, the sitter was immediately recognised by Diderot and Bachaumont as the Marquise de Marigny, which is hardly surprising given her fame. Marie-Françoise Julie Constance Filleul was the illegitimate daughter of Louis XV by one of his mistresses. In 1767, the date this portrait was painted, she married Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, Marquis de Marigny, brother of the King's official mistress, Madame de Pompadour and, as Directeur Générale des Bâtiments, Arts, Jardins et Manufactures, one of the most powerful men in France. The Marquis had sat to Roslin three years prior to his marriage, and the subsequent portrait, which depicts him seated studying some architectural plans, is now in Versailles (see fig. 1). 

1. See Seznec, under Literature, p. 25. 
2. Idem, p. 172.