Abel-François Poisson, marquis de Marigny

Infobox_Politician
name = Abel-François Poisson de Vandières


width = 250px
height = 300px
caption = The marquis de Marigny. Portrait by Alexander Roslin, 1764. Château de Versailles.
birth_date =1727
birth_place = Paris
residence =
death_date = death date|1781|5|12|mf=y
death_place = Paris
office = Directeur-général, Bâtiments du Roi
salary =
term_start = 1751
term_end = 1773
predecessor = Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem
successor = Joseph Marie Terray
constituency =
office2 =
salary2 =
term_start2 =
term_end2 =
predecessor2 =
successor2 =
constituency2 =
office3 =
salary3 =
term_start3 =
term_end3 =
predecessor3 =
successor3 =
constituency3 =
party =
religion = Church of France
occupation =
majority =
spouse =
children =
website =
footnotes =

Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, marquis de Marigny and marquis de Menars, often referred to simply as the Marquis de Marigny (1727, Paris - May 1781, Paris) was a French nobleman who served as the director general of the King's Buildings. He was the brother of King Louis XV's influential mistress Madame de Pompadour.

Life

Of non-noble birth, Abel-François Poisson de Vandières was raised in a family of Parisian financiers. When his elder sister, Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson became, in 1745, the official mistress of Louis XV and was given the title "marquise de Pompadour", she had him follow her to the court, and it was here that the young man attracted the favors of the king. When Philibert Orry retired, the king gave to Abel-François Poisson de Vandières -- then aged 18 -- the direction of the Bâtiments du Roi ("direction générale des Bâtiments, Arts, Jardins et Manufactures") while Charles François Paul Le Normant de Tournehem, the biological father of the marquise de Pompadour, was named as Orry's successor.

Charles Antoine Coypel, first painter to the king, was given the responsibility of forming the young Abel-François Poisson de Vandières. With Coypel's help, Poisson de Vandières chose paintings from the royal collection for exhibition at the Palais du Luxembourg, thus creating the first museum in France.

Between December 1749 and September 1751, he stayed in Italy for 25 months, staying first at the Académie de France à Rome, and then travelling (the so-called "Grand Tour") across the country with the engraver Charles Nicolas Cochin, the architect Jacques-Germain Soufflot and the abby Leblanc. This trip would have important repercussions on the development of arts and artistic taste in France.

At the death of Le Normant de Tournehem in 1751, Poisson de Vandières was called back from Italy and he took over his functions as "directeur général des Bâtiments du Roi" (director general of the King's Buildings). He kept this position until his retirement in 1773, thereby setting a record for the longest administrative service in the 18th century in France.

Irritable, boastful, easily angered, insecure about his humble origins, Marigny was nevertheless an intelligent and energetic administrator concerned with the importance of his work. He encouraged history painting and, in architecture, the return to classical sources, which would become French neoclassicism. He sponsored the architect Soufflot, whom he chose for the construction of the new Église Sainte-Geneviève (today the "Panthéon"), a major work in the neoclassical style. He gave oversight of the construction of the new Théâtre-Français (today the Théâtre de l'Odéon) to Charles De Wailly and Marie-Joseph Peyre. He directed construction of the "place Louis XV" (today the place de la Concorde) and the planting of the gardens of the Champs-Élysées. He supervised construction of the École Militaire. He gave numerous commissions to François Boucher, Charles-Amédée-Philippe van Loo, Jean-Baptiste Pierre and he named Charles-Joseph Natoire as director of the Académie de France à Rome.

Having inherited from his father in 1754 the château of Marigny-en-Orxois, near Château Thierry, he became the same year "marquis de Marigny". In 1767, he married Julie Filleul (1751-1822), the daughter of Louis XV by one of his mistresses.

The Marquis de Marigny amassed an important collection of artwork at his various residences.

Although he suffered severely from gout, the Marquis de Marigny died unexpectedly in 1781, and he did not leave a will.

Residences

* 1752-1778: Hôtel de Marigny, built in 1640, rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre (destroyed, the site today is the corner of the Richelieu wing of the Louvre and the North-East corner of the "pyramide du Louvre"). The Direction générale des Bâtiments was located here until 1773.
* 1778-1781: Hôtel de Massiac, place des Victoires, built in 1635.
* 1754-1781: Château of Marigny-en-Orxois, a renovated medieval castle.
* 1759-1773: Hôtel de Marigny, faubourg du Roule, Paris. Bought from Louis Philippe I, Duke of Orléans. Redesigned in 1768-1771 by Jacques-Germain Soufflot who constructed the West facade in a Palladian style.
* 1764-1781: Château de Menars in Menars (Loir-et-Cher), inherited from his sister, la marquise de Pompadour.
* Pavillon Le Pate in Bercy, South-West Paris, built in 1720.
* 1781: Hôtel Delpech de Chaumot, n° 8 place Vendôme in Paris.

References

*"This article is a translation of the equivalent article from the French Wikipedia, consulted on August 14 2006."

* Alden Gordon, "The House and Collections of the Marquis de Marigny", Los Angeles, Getty Press, 2003.
* A. Marquiset, "Le Marquis de Marigny", Paris, 1918.