Hiram Powers (American, 1805-1873): A documented carved Carrara marble portrait bust of Mary Rebecca Lloyd Boggs Ray (1808-1876)

circa 1853-4

Footnotes

Provenance
Commissioned by Mary Rebecca Boggs Ray, April 1853 directly from the sculptor.
With Mary Rebecca Ray, New York by August 1856.
Thence by family descent to Madeleine Marie Isabelle Dubois de Courval (1870-1944) via her mother Mary 'Birdie', Viscountess de Courval and subsequently to François de Noailles, Château de Mouchy-le-Châtel, circa 1944.
Thence by descent to the current Duke of Mouchy de Poix.
Sold Les Greniers de Mouchy sale, October 23, 2020, Paris, Auctioneer Hubert 1'Huillier, lot 243.

The daughter of New York merchant and friend of George Washington, James Boggs, Mary Rebecca Boggs married New York merchant Richard Ray in 1832 but was widowed in Paris in 1836. In these four brief years of marriage she two children but only her second daughter also called Mary but known affectionately as 'Birdie' born in 1835 survived. Mother and daughter travelled in Europe in the years after the death of Richard Ray and before settling permanently in Paris when 'Birdie' married Arthur Constant du Bois, Viscounte de Courval in 1856.

In the summer of 1852, whilst visiting Florence, Mary Rebecca Boggs Ray made an appointment at the studio of the celebrated and renowned American sculptor Hiram Powers for a sitting for herself and her daughter which took place between the 8th and the 18th April 1853.

The two likenesses were cut in the Powers studio in Florence by his master carver Antonio Ambuchi in 1853 and were due to be shipped to New York in 1854 but various problems resulted in the delay of the shipping of the consignment via the 'SS Peter' from Florence to New York until January 1856 and they were finally received in the summer of 1856.

Various correspondence between Powers and Mary Rebecca Lloyd Boggs Ray regarding the appointments for the sitting and the commission including the delay and confirmation that the busts had been received between 1853 and 1857 reveal that Powers was also commissioned to produce further plaster casts of each portrait bust as gifts for family members. However is not known if these commissions were ever realised.

Both busts passed by family descent from mother and daughter to Madeleine Marie Isabelle Dubois de Courval (1870-1944), granddaughter of the sitter for the offered lot, after she married Napoléon Eugène Emmanuel Joseph Marie 'François' de Noailles de Mouchy de Poix formerly Noailles (1866-1900), known as 'The Prince of Poix' and son of Antoine, Duc de Mouchy and Anna, Princess Murat (granddaughter of the King of Naples). However the bust was not recorded in the collection of the Château de Mouchy until the 1940's as the estate most likely passed to his son Henry, whose father 'François' had died in 1900, nine years before his grandfather. As such the widowed Madeleine de Courval, Princess of Poix, never settled permanently in Mouchy, instead living in a mansion at the bottom of the Place des Etats Unis and at the Villa Courval in Trouville so it is likely the bust arrived in Mouchy after passing to her son in 1944.

Related Literature
R. P. Wunder, Hiram Powers Vermont Sculptor, 1805 -1873, Newark, Delaware, 1990, p. 32 (bust of Mary 'Birdie', Viscountess de Courval, née Ray), p. 88 (bust of Mary Rebecca Boggs Ray), also p. 217 (hand of of Mary 'Birdie', Viscountess de Courval née Ray).