Jens Juel (b. Balslev, Funen 1745, d. Copenhagen 1802)
A pair of portraits of bookkeeper at Asiatisk Kompagni (Danish Asiatic Company) Christophe Battier (1733–1786) and his wife Anna Elisabeth Battier, née Storp (1755–1793). He is wearing a dark reddish brown jacket and is sitting at a table which is covered by a green cloth, on the table some books. She is wearing a brownish dress with lace at the elbows and a greyish-white cape. Her hair is put up and around her neck a black ribbon. She is holding a basket with roses in her hands. C. 1772. Both unsigned. Both oil on canvas. 78×62 cm each. Period frames. (2).
The artist's own repetitions of no. 117 and 118 in Ellen Poulsen, A Catalogue Raisonné of the Works of Jens Juel, 1991. She is dated 1771, he is dated 1772 and both are signed and they were exhibited in Kunstforeningen, “Jens Juel Udstillingen”, 1909 nos. 20 and 21.
Anders Ravn Sørensen and Benjamin Asmussen, “Maleriets forbandelse, Jagten på et kunstværk og dets ejere” (The Curse of a Painting, The Hunt for a Work of Art and its owners), Copenhagen 2023, are telling the history of nos. 117 and 118 in Ellen Poulsen's list from the commission of the paintings from Jens Juel to their current location in Portugal. The two authors also provide a thorough description of Christophe Battier's life. His fall from top manager of the Asiatic Company to fraudster and exile in Paris. What a fate!
Provenance: Mrs Mary Gamborg (her mother was née Battier) (1909). The paintings were owned by the family until 1931. Winkel & Magnussen auction 99, 1931 nos. 80 and 81, ill. pp. 10–11. Bruun Rasmussen auction Tresor 795, 2008 no. 15, ill. pp. 28–29.
Christophe Battier was born in Switzerland in 1733 into a family with both banking and merchant roots. At the age of 20, he was in London, and in the 1760s, he was employed in Copenhagen as an office clerk at Reinhard Iselin & Co. Five years later he was employed as an accountant in the Asiatic Company. The previous accountant had defrauded the company, so a solid and capable man like Battier was needed who could take over and rectify the blatant fraud that had been committed. In March 1772, Battier married the 17-year-old Anna Elisabeth Storp. In April 1773, they had a son, Jean-Jacques. A bright future was in sight. Battier began to lend money, among other things, to himself. In 1778, he borrowed a large sum of money, which was used to invest in his own ships and perhaps also for military equipment, which was common practice at the time for a Danish merchant. In 1783, the scandal broke out. The company was almost 700,000 rigsdaler short in cash – and both Battier and several of the other employees were as if sunk into the ground. He had fled with his family to Paris, where he died in 1786.
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