'Brush with history' - South Shields museum worker stunned by amazing family link to 17th Century masterpiece
“It’s quite remarkable that I’ve been invigilating the painting, without knowing until now that the Marquise was a distant relative.”
A museum worker in South Tyneside has had a shock brush with art history through a startling discovery staring him in the face.
Stunned Rory Brady, 44, chanced upon the fact he is related to 17th Century French noblewoman Catherine, Marquise de Seignelay, while researching his family’s past.
In a remarkable coincidence, he found that out while curating an exhibition at South Shields Museum and Art Gallery in which a painting she is featured in is the star attraction.
She was painted by renowned French painter Pierre Mignard in his giant and highly colourful 1691 work The Marquise de Seignelay.
Mignard’s work went on the display at the Ocean Road museum in August and remains on show until Saturday, November 7.
It reveals the recently widowed Marquise in a then fashionable mythological setting, draped in beautiful finery, her son and love’s favourite Cupid by her side.
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His is the second of three paintings being loaned by the National Gallery as part of its countrywide Masterpiece Tour.
The first was Claude Monet’s 1872 The Petit Bras of the Seine at Argenteuil, which took centre stage in January.
Rory's connection is that he is a distant cousin of Charles de Lorraine, Count of Marsan, the second husband of Catherine.
He said he felt “intrigued” and “excited” upon finding out about his distant family connection to the artwork while doing research on the Ancestry website.
And he added: “It’s quite remarkable that I’ve been invigilating the painting, without knowing until now that the Marquise was a distant relative.”
In the 5ft by 6ft artwork, an erupting volcano is seen behind the Marquise, a depiction experts say may reflect her emotional turmoil over her husband’s death, mixed with her desire and need for a new partner.
Mignard painted her clothing partly in ultramarine from a pigment that at the time was more valuable than gold.
He depicts the Marquise as the sea goddess Thetis, alongside her son represented as Achilles, connecting her family to the heroic figures of Greek mythology.
The free exhibition, named Mignard: The Power of Posing, explores the power of portraiture and how artists use pose, clothing, expression and setting to communicate identity, status and personality.