There were also French paintings in Yolande’s Paris apartment. These were (in the order of the 1895 sale catalogue) Watteau’s La Gamme d’Amour (NG 2897);49 another picture ascribed to Watteau of ‘A Lady, in white fur-trimmed robe, lace head-dress with pink ribbons/ 21½ in. x 17¼ in.’, the size of which precludes it from being La rêveuse (Art Institute of Chicago),50 but which allows the possibility that it was one of two lost paintings known as The Polish Woman;51 Niçaise by Lancret, and Les Deux Amis by the same artist, both on copper and now in the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, Williamstown;52 a portrait of the comtesse du Barry by François-Hubert Drouais;53 a Nattier portrait said to be of the princesse de Conti;54 another Nattier of an unidentified woman, signed and dated 1754, which, judging by the catalogue description, might have been an autograph(?), slightly smaller, replica of Nattier’s Elizabeth, Countess of Warwick in the Frick Collection, New York;55 a portrait of the comte de Ségur, signed and dated 1760, and said to be by Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, who, however, had died 15 years earlier; one of Greuze’s best portraits, said in the 1895 sale catalogue to be of his father, but in fact of his father-in-law, François Babuti;56 a Greuze Portrait of a Girl; and a Boucher Youth. Two French paintings which were not part of the 1895 sale were auctioned in 1911 on behalf of Stephens Lyne Stephens as having once formed part of the Lyne Stephens Collection. The first was by Boilly, ‘A Girl in a white dress, standing in a garden, taking some young birds from a nest’. This may correspond to a picture which had been auctioned in Paris in 1868.57 The second was a Pater ‘Fête Champêtre’ which, in spite of having certain compositional elements in common with Pater’s La Balançoire mentioned above, was certainly a different painting.58 The overall high quality of Yolande Lyne Stephens’s paintings was recognised. In a retrospective review of the art sales of the 1895 season, the Observer was of the opinion that
as regards art properties comprising pictures and the thousand and one objets d’art which make up the possessions of the connoisseur, there can be no doubt that interest was chiefly centred in the Lyne-Stephens and Clifden sales. The former occupied eight days in its dispersal, and achieved the total of over £113,500, of which nearly £47,000 was paid for the pictures,59 which included a Velasquez, a Murillo, a Nattier, and a Watteau.60 With regard to the last, La Gamme d’Amour, Mr. Woods61 committed himself to the avowal that it was the finest he had seen at auction.62
49 This, and the other French paintings hereafter mentioned, were said in the catalogue of the 1895 sale to have been ‘removed from Mrs. Lyne Stephens’ house [sic] in Paris’.
50 See Morgan Grasselli and Rosenberg 1984, p. 306.
51 For these paintings, see ibid., p. 305. The dimensions, but not the size, of the Lyne Stephens painting are almost identical to those of the copy in the Muzeum Narodowe, Warsaw, and quite close to those of the engraving by Aubert of the seated Polish Woman.
52 Wildenstein 1924, nos. 655 and 641, and fig. 165, where recorded as in the Pierpont Morgan collection.
53 In the collection of the comte and comtesse de Ganay in 1933: Three French Reigns 1933, no. 493.
54 The composition bears some resemblance in reverse to that of Nattier’s Madame la comtesse de Brac en Aurore (Detroit Institute of Arts), but it is not that picture, as the size, and above all the catalogue illustration, make clear. For the Detroit painting, see Xavier Salmon 1999b, no. 29.
55 The provenance of the Frick painting precludes it from having once been in the Lyne Stephens collection: Frick Collection, vol.II, 1968, p. 166.
56 See Munhall 1976, no. 26.
57 Christie, Manson & Woods, 16 June 1911, lot 95, with dimensions given as 15½ x 12 in., £714 to Simpson. The metric equivalents are 41.94 x 32.47 cm. It may correspond to Drouot, 15 April 1868, Philippe Lechat, lot 4: ‘Au pied d’un grand arbre … et d’un banc de pierre sur lequel est un petit chien blanc longs poils, ruban bleu autour de son cou, on voit une jeune fille blonde; une écharpe lui entoure les épaules se rattachant … à ceinture; jupe de soie blanche; elle est occupée de retirer d’un tronc d’arbre un nid de pinsons; droite, sur une branche, la mère craint pour ses petits. Toile – H. 40 cm, L. 32 cm.’ I am grateful to Etienne Breton for this suggestion.
58 Christie, Manson & Woods, 16 June 1911, lot 107 where described as ‘Five figures and two children, round a table; a man rocking a girl in a swing on the left / 21 in by 18 in.’.
59 The total figures calculated by The Times (22 May 1895) were £76,946 12s. 6d. for the porcelain, decorative furniture and objets d’art; £46,786 16s. for the pictures; and £17,271 3s. for the jewels; making a total of £141,004 11s. 6d.
60 Clearly a reference to NG 2897 since its price of 3,350 guineas is mentioned in the same article.
61 “’Mr. Woods’ was presumably the partner of that name in the auctioneering firm of Christie, Manson & Woods which organised the Lyne Stephens sale.
62 Observer, 21 July 1895, p. 6. The Magazine of Art considered that the Lyne Stephens collection was the chief among the several important collections to have recently been auctioned, and it included a reproduction of NG 2897: vol. 18 (1894–5), pp. 356 and 360.