FREITAG, 5. DEZEMBER 2025 
This Week in La Gazette Drouot : A Never-Before-Seen Trompe-l'Oeil of Louis XVIII's Mineralogy Collection by a Rare Artist, the Vicomte de Barde
M inéraux tirés du cabinet particulier du Roi, peint à l'aquarelle (Minerals From the King's Private Cabinet, Painted in Watercolor), acquired by order of the King's household from the royal museums, is the only visual testimony to the king's passion as a "mineralogist," captured by the Viscount de Barde, a rare artist.
By Carole Blumenfeld
Read the full version of A Never-Before-Seen Trompe-l'Oeil of Louis XVIII's Mineralogy Collection by a Rare Artist, the Vicomte de Barde in La Gazette Drouot
The core of Louis XVIII 's personal mineralogy collection or cabinet took shape when the sovereign was still only Count of Provence, during his British exile. During the Restoration, the collection underwent a remarkable expansion, fueled by far more generous funding than was granted to the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and, to a decisive extent, by the purchase of the collection of crystallographer Jacques-Louis de Bournon.
Appointed Director of the King's Mineralogical Cabinet, Bournon published a voluminous catalog of over 550 pages in 1817, entitled La Collection Minéralogique Particulière du Roi (The King's Private Mineralogical Collection, Which Belonged to the Author of the Catalog When it Was Acquired by His Majesty).
Like Bournon, Viscount Alexandre-Isidore Leroy de Barde had many of the qualities that appealed to Louis XVIII. He emigrated to London in 1792 at the age of 15, where he exhibited from 1797 onwards at the Royal Academy Salons, which still holds two of his early watercolors. Over the next decade, he worked on a suite of works, engraved in 1814 for the publication of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Different Subjects Represented in Large Water Colour Drawings, by the Chevalier de Barde Now Exhibited at Mr Bullock's Museum. He returned to France with the rise of Louis XVIII, followed him to Ghent during the Hundred Days, then sold him six works, exhibited in London in 1814 and now in the Louvre Museum.
All of them, painted between 1803 and 1814, were presented again at the Salon of 1817, as " paintings [that] belong to His Majesty ": Greek or Etruscan Vases, The Great Royal Tiger Choked by the Snake, Selection of Shells Arranged on Shelves, Boxes Containing Birds, Minerals in Crystallization and Meeting of Foreign Birds Placed in Various Boxes. Until now, nothing has been more mysterious than the artistic production of this artist, whose only known works are a still life donated to the Louvre in 2010, a mythological scene acquired by the Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer and a set in Recques-sur-Course.
Read the full version of A Never-Before-Seen Trompe-l'Oeil of Louis XVIII's Mineralogy Collection by a Rare Artist, the Vicomte de Barde in La Gazette Drouot
The core of Louis XVIII 's personal mineralogy collection or cabinet took shape when the sovereign was still only Count of Provence, during his British exile. During the Restoration, the collection underwent a remarkable expansion, fueled by far more generous funding than was granted to the Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris and, to a decisive extent, by the purchase of the collection of crystallographer Jacques-Louis de Bournon.
Appointed Director of the King's Mineralogical Cabinet, Bournon published a voluminous catalog of over 550 pages in 1817, entitled La Collection Minéralogique Particulière du Roi (The King's Private Mineralogical Collection, Which Belonged to the Author of the Catalog When it Was Acquired by His Majesty).
Like Bournon, Viscount Alexandre-Isidore Leroy de Barde had many of the qualities that appealed to Louis XVIII. He emigrated to London in 1792 at the age of 15, where he exhibited from 1797 onwards at the Royal Academy Salons, which still holds two of his early watercolors. Over the next decade, he worked on a suite of works, engraved in 1814 for the publication of A Descriptive Catalogue of the Different Subjects Represented in Large Water Colour Drawings, by the Chevalier de Barde Now Exhibited at Mr Bullock's Museum. He returned to France with the rise of Louis XVIII, followed him to Ghent during the Hundred Days, then sold him six works, exhibited in London in 1814 and now in the Louvre Museum.
All of them, painted between 1803 and 1814, were presented again at the Salon of 1817, as " paintings [that] belong to His Majesty ": Greek or Etruscan Vases, The Great Royal Tiger Choked by the Snake, Selection of Shells Arranged on Shelves, Boxes Containing Birds, Minerals in Crystallization and Meeting of Foreign Birds Placed in Various Boxes. Until now, nothing has been more mysterious than the artistic production of this artist, whose only known works are a still life donated to the Louvre in 2010, a mythological scene acquired by the Musée de Boulogne-sur-Mer and a set in Recques-sur-Course.
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