Description Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza (Mexican/New Orleans, c. 1750-1802), "Portrait of Marie Marguerite Reine Sarde Le Bourgeois (1752-1833)", 1797, oil on canvas, signed and dated lower right, inscribed in French en verso, 36 1/2 in. x 28 7/8 in., framed. Note: Marie Marguerite Reine lived through a tumultuous and fascinating period in Louisiana history and was one of the rare ladies depicted by the illustrious Jose Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza. Situated within Salazar's characteristic fictive oval, she is seated at a right angle to the viewer in a Louis XVI chair with her arm resting on a marble top commode. The scene likely was composed in Salazar's studio, based on the inclusion of similar furniture in other portraits, notably his depiction of Marie Jeanne Bozonnier De Marmillion Loubies (1768-1833). Marie Marguerite's costume includes a draped white shawl in a sumptuous fabric and white hair ribbon, along with delicately rendered gold earrings, onyx bead necklace and gold ring. At the age of forty-five when depicted here in 1797, Marie Marguerite was a woman of means, married to her second husband and mother to eleven surviving children. Marie Marguerite was the daughter of French immigrants Etienne Pierre Reine (c. 1729-1788) and Marie Fran?oise Renard (c. 1725-1795). She was one of ten children and spent her life in the New Orleans area. She married Nicolas Sarde (c. 1748-1780) in 1768 and had six children: Marie Francoise "Marguerite" Sarde (c. 1769-1835) who married Joseph Gillard (born c. 1760); Marguerite Jeanne "Manette" Sarde (c. 1772-1835) who married Urbain Gaiennie (1754-1824); Eulalie Alexandrine Sarde (c. 1774-1820) who married Francois "Joseph" Gaiennie (c. 1760-1804); Euphrosine Sarde (c. 1776-1862) who married Jean Gleises (c. 1770); Etienne Sarde (c. 1778), and Eugenie Sarde (c. 1781-1865) who married Jacques Nadaud (c. 1762-1822). Widowed in 1780, Marie Marguerite re-married to Pierre Le Bourgeois (c. 1752-1824) around 1784. Pierre Le Bourgeois had immigrated to the United States from Normandy, France in 1772, and he first settled in Philadelphia, where he engaged in the silk trade. In 1776, he moved to New Orleans to avoid disruptions to his business during the American Revolution and met the widow Marie Marguerite Sarde. The couple had five more children: Louis Le Bourgeois(1785-1837) who married Erasie Haydel Becnel (1782-1857); Etienne Pierre Le Bourgeois (c. 1787-1850) who married Louise Arthemise Matherne (c. 1806-1850); Adolestine "Celeste" Le Bourgeois (c. 1789-1853) who married Valery Armant (c. 1780-1862); Guillaume Henry Le Bourgeois (c. 1791); and Arnaud Le Bourgeois (c. 1797-1862) who married Catherine Aimee Boucry (c. 1806-1839). From a notable family tree, Marie Marguerite's father, Etienne Pierre Reine, served in the Militia Regiment of Louisiana under General Bernardo Galvez. Louis Le Bourgeois, her eldest son with her second husband, owned the original land and house in St. James Parish where Belmont Plantation was built after his death by his widow, Erasie Haydel Becnel Le Bourgeois. Belmont Plantation was located on the east bank of the Mississippi River directly opposite of the well-known Oak Alley Plantation. Belmont was described as "one of the finest plantation mansions in Louisiana, a magnificent example of a wealthy planter's home?it typifies the luxurious scale of living during the golden era of the state." The house survived the Civil War only to be heavily damaged by the Belmont crevasse of the early 1890s and then destroyed by fire a year later. Ref.: Churchill, Charles Robert. Bernardo de Galvez: Services to the American Revolution. Baton Rouge, LA: Louisiana Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, 1925. Chapin, Adèle Le Bourgeois. Their Trackless Way: A Book of Memories. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1932. Gontar, Cybèle, ed. Salazar: Portraits of Influence in Spanish New Orleans 1785-1802. New Orleans: Ogden Museum of Southern Art/ University of New Orleans Press, 2018. Seebold, Herman Boehm de Bachellé. Old Louisiana Plantation Homes and Family Trees. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 194
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