Cassan�a De Mondonville, Maximilien-Joseph (Paris, 1749 - Charenton, Saint-Maurice 1809)Portrait of Simon Augustin Bazard wearing a black tricorn hat, brown coat over black waistcoat and lace jabot. Black, white, and coloured chalks on thick paper. Inscribed verso with date, 1768. Housed in a glazed ebonised frame, (picture is not touching the glass).Pastel: 19 x 16 in. (48 x 41 cm).Frame: 21 3/4 x 18 3/4 in. (55.3 x 47.7 cm).The artist was the 20-year-old son of the famous composer and violinist Jean-Joseph Cassan�a de Mondonville (1711-1772), and his wife, the amateur pastellist Anne-Jeanne Boucon (q.v.). They were the subject of pastels by La Tour which belonged to the son in 1782 (Tessier 1926 presumed this was the occasion of their sale, the Salon de La Correspondence, being his view nothing but a commercial venture). The sitter: Simon Augustin Bazard was a friend of the father, who attended Jean-Joseph�s burial at Saint-Jean de Belleville, in 1772.Maximilien-Joseph was a contr�leur des rentes de l�h�tel de ville de Paris. In 1779 he was awarded a pension of 600 livres in consideration of his father�s services; he was then living in the house on the rue des Vieux-Augustins which his grandfather had purchased. The amateur pastellist was also a violinist and oboist and composed six sonatas for violin and bass. Tourneux mentions a pencil drawing of the Castle of Ermenonville, dated 1786.He was married twice, first (Paris, Saint-Eustache, 1785, where he had been baptised) to a Marie-Rose Gurber (1762-1828) from whom he was divorced 1797; and secondly (Paris, 1800) to a Marie Th�odore Keill, by whom he had three children. The dispute over the settlement with his first wife continued until 1806 and required the sale of the house in the rue des Vieux-Augustin�s; Mondonville moved to a small apartment in the rue de Montorgueil. In 1808 Mondonville was confined to the mental asylum at Charenton where he died the following year, while his wife m...