Claude GAUTHEROT(1769 - 1825) - Lot 59

Claude GAUTHEROT(1769 - 1825) Portrait of Count Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis 124x110 cm canvas Provenance : - Paris private collection Related: - another full-length version is preserved at Versailles, Musée National du Château, 1806. Jean-Étienne-Marie Portalis, one of the great figures of French law and a key architect of the Civil Code, studied law in Aix-en-Provence, where he became a prominent lawyer. Under the Ancien Régime, he was involved in the defense of individual and religious freedoms, which sometimes earned him political enmity. The Revolution turned his career upside down: after a period of withdrawal due to the Terror, he returned to public life under the Directoire. His real rise came under the Consulate, however, when Napoleon Bonaparte called on him in 1800 to take part in the commission charged with drafting the Civil Code. Portalis played a decisive role, designing the general architecture of the text and writing the famous Preliminary Discourse, in which he expounded a legal philosophy based on reason, moderation and the search for justice. Later appointed Minister of Religious Affairs, he worked to re-establish relations between the State and the Church through the Concordat of 1801. Portalis died in 1807, leaving behind the image of a visionary legislator whose legacy still profoundly marks French law. Bibliography Jean-Luc A. Chartier: Portalis, père du Code civil, Paris, Editions Fayard, 2004, 441 p.Joël-Benoît d'Onorio: Portalie, l'esprit des siècles, Paris, Editions Dalloz, 2005, 364 p.