Antoine de Ratabon
Possible portrait of Antoine de Ratabon by Pierre Rabon (1660)[a]
Director of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture
In office
1655–1670
MonarchLouis XIV of France
Succeeded byCharles Errard
Surintendant des Bâtiments du Roi
In office
1656 – 1 January 1664
Preceded byÉtienne Le Camus
Succeeded byJean-Baptiste Colbert
Personal details
Born1617
Montpellier, France
Died12 March 1670(1670-03-12) (aged 52–53)
Paris, France
ResidenceHôtel de Ratabon
SignatureSignature of Antoine de Ratabon: "Ratabon A"

Antoine de Ratabon (1617 – 12 March 1670) was a French aristocrat who served as an arts and architecture administrator during the reign of Louis XIV.[1][2] He was the first Director of the Académie de Peinture et de Sculpture from 1655 to 1670[3] as well as the Surintendant des Bâtiments (Superintendent of Buildings) from 1656 to 1664.[4]

Early life and career

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Ratabon was born in Montpellier, the son of Jean de Ratabon, an equerry, and Catherine Pache from Servien, near Mende. He became Maître d'Hôtel Ordinaire of King Louis XIV, Trésorier Général de France at Montpellier, and Intendant des Gabelles of Languedoc.[1]

Bâtiments du Roi

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In Paris he became First Assistant to François Sublet de Noyers, who was the Surintendant des Bâtiments under Cardinal Richelieu,[1] and continued in this role under Étienne Le Camus, who succeeded Sublet de Noyers as Surintendant after the latter's dismissal under Cardinal Mazarin in 1643. Ratabon succeeded Le Camus in 1656. Ratabon relinquished the post to Jean-Baptiste Colbert on 1 January 1664.[5][6]

In his role as Surintendant des Bâtiments, Ratabon ordered the demolition of the Hôtel du Petit-Bourbon in October 1660 to make way for the eastward expansion of the Louvre and construction of the Louvre Colonnade. The order resulted in the eviction without warning of the troupe of Molière from the theatre of the Petit Bourbon and their transfer to the disused and run-down theatre of the Palais-Royal.[1]

Personal life

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By a contract of 1 March 1647, Ratabon married Marie Sanguin, daughter of Nicolas Sanguin, an equerry and sieur de Pierrelaye. The eight-year-old Louis XIV, his mother Anne d'Autriche, and Cardinal Mazarin were all present and signed the contract. The couple had several children of which three survived into adulthood:[1]

In 1664 Ratabon constructed a house, the Hôtel de Ratabon, to the designs of the architect Pierre Le Muet on a site on the western border of the garden of the Palais-Royal, now 10 rue de Richelieu in the 1st arrondissement of Paris.[8] He died in this house in 1670.[1] It was destroyed in 1873.[8]

References

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Notes

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  1. ^ The subject of this portrait was identified as Louis Le Vau in 1955 by Albert Laprade, who recognized the plan as that of the southwest corner of the old Louvre, that is the Bathing Apartment of the Queen Mother Anne d'Autriche, remodeled by Le Vau in the summer of 1661, and the building illustrated in the background as the pavilion at the north end of the Louvre's Petite Galerie (see Galerie d'Apollon), constructed after the fire of 1 February 1661 (see also Laprade 1960, chapter 3, plate 1).
         Christophe Hardouin disputed Laprade's attribution in an unpublished thesis for the University of Paris and identified the painting as Pierre Rabon's presentation piece before the Academy on 3 July 1660, which portrayed Antoine de Ratabon, Surintendant des Bâtiments (see Thierry Bajou; also Hilary Ballon 1999, p. 201, note 8, who was unable to examine the thesis but cites Bajou). Bajou comments that the "building plan and the facade therefore correspond to projects and not to completed buildings. It is unfortunately, just as impossible to confirm this identification, by comparing the sitter's features with those in other painted, sculpted or engraved portraits."

Citations

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  1. ^ a b c d e f Vitu 1880, pp. 151–153.
  2. ^ Bajou 1998, p. 76 (years of birth and death).
  3. ^ Michel 2018, p. 21; Williams 2015, p. 45.
  4. ^ Williams 2015, p. 23.
  5. ^ Gordan 1996, p. 134.
  6. ^ Cojannot 2003, pp. 141, 173–174.
  7. ^ H. Thiry-Van Buggenhoudt, (1905). "Ratabon, Martin de", vol. 18, column 753", in Biographie nationale. Académie royale des sciences, des lettres et des beaux-arts de Belgique.
  8. ^ a b Gady 2008, p. 315.

Bibliography

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