Overview
Augustin Blondel de Gagny (; March 1695 – 9 July 1776) was a French connoisseur of the arts and a collector whose series of Paris auction sales, which took place soon after his death were high-water marks of the history of collecting in 18th-century France. Paintings and sculptures that passed through Blondel de Gagny's collection are dispersed in many of the world's great museums. The prints from his collection are less easily traced.
Biography
His father, Joseph Blondel, was conseiller and general treasurer at the Bâtiments du roi, the establishment in charge of building and maintaining the royal buildings and parks. Joseph purchased the château de Gagny from its Billy heirs in 1706; though it was purchased by the creditors of his estate in 1716, Augustin Blondel de Gagny retained its name. Augustin married Marguerite-Henriette Barbier, who predeceased him.
Due in part to the confidence in his competence shown by Jean-Baptiste de Machault d'Arnouville, from 1750 Augustin Blondel held the post of general treasurer of the Caisse des Amortissements that was intended to pay down the king's debts and from April 1752 that of supervisor of the Menus-Plaisirs du Roi, responsible for ephemeral decorations for all the fêtes of the court of Louis XVI. Part of his duties that must have been pleasant was the supervision of the Opera, for Blondel loved music: the Stradivarius violin "the best known by this master" according to the sale catalogue, which he kept in his little château at Garges-lès-Gonesse (Val d'Oise), was bought at the sale by Paillet, for 601 livres; there were several other violins as well.
In 1759 he took up residence in his late father's hôtel particulier in Place Louis le Grand (Place Vendôme). There his collection of paintings and works of art was among the most visited and commented upon in Paris, after those of the princes. He had made his first public purchases at the sale of the comtesse de Verrue, 1737. By 1745 his place among the most selective collectors was well established: when the marchand-mercier Gersaint returned with paintings he had bought at The Hague, he went first to his patron, Blondel de Gagny, who selected from Gersaint's offerings a Nicolaes Berghem.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).