Franois-Henri Mulard* (1769-1850)

Portrait of a Lady, seated three-quarter length, wearing a white dress with a paisley shawl and holding a glove

Details

Franois-Henri Mulard* (1769-1850)
Mulard, F.-H.
Portrait of a Lady, seated three-quarter length, wearing a white dress with a paisley shawl and holding a glove
signed 'Mulard'
oil on canvas
39.3/8 x 31in. (100 x 80.6cm.)

Provenance

Normand family, Paris.
with Newhouse Galleries, New York from whom acquired in 1958 by
Mr. and Mrs. Kay Kimbell, by whom given to the
Kimbell Art Foundation; Sotheby's, New York, Jan. 17, 1992, lot 94 ($165,000 to the present owner).

Literature

Kimbell Art Museum: Catalogue of the Collection, 1972, pp. 164-5, illustrated.
Kimbell Art Museum: Handbook of the Collection, 1981, p. 99, illustrated.

Exhibited

Paris, Grand Palais; Detroit, The Detroit Institute of Arts; and New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, French Painting 1774-1830: The Art of Revolution, Nov. 16, 1974 - Sept. 7, 1975, p. 559, no. 136, p. 213 illustrated.
I. Julia, in the catalogue of the exhibition, De David Delacroix; la peinture franaise de 1774 1830, Paris, Grande Palais, Nov. 16.-Feb. 3, 1975, p. 553, no. 136, pl. 131.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Age of Napoleon, Costume from Revolution to Empire 1789-1815, Dec. 13 - April 15, 1990, p. 96, no. 89, illustrated.

Lot Essay

By the time Mulard executed the present portrait, he had won the 2nd Annual Grand Prix de Rome (1782) and had been recognized as a history painter (his works were exhibited in the Salon between 1808-17).

The identity of the present sitter is unknown but the fashionable nature of her dress and the plethora of colorful accessories suggest that she may be the wife or daughter of a successful Parisian Bourgeois. It is these trappings that allow the present painting to be dated to circa 1810. Only one other portrait by Mulard is known today, that of Mademoiselle d'Herbez de Saint-Aubin en Bergre Suisse in the Muse du Louvre, Paris.