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Lot Essay
During the second half of the 19th century, Jean-Léon Gérôme was one of the most famous and influential academic painters in the world. Best remembered for the extraordinary detail of his Orientalist works and for his innovative history paintings which captured the dramatic spectacle of the ancient world, Gérôme was, perhaps surprisingly, a relatively infrequent portraitist, particularly in comparison to many of his colleagues at the École des Beaux-Arts. When the present painting appeared on the art market in 1982, its provenance suggested that it had been passed through the family of the artist, and the sitter was identified as Gérôme’s wife, Marie Goupil, the daughter of the artist’s dealer, Adolphe Goupil. Gérôme’s professional relationship with the Goupil family began in 1859 when he became one of the rising stars of Adolphe’s gallery; he married Marie in 1863. As many of Gérôme’s known portraits do tend to feature the artist’s family, the identification of the sitter was accepted at the time.
The provenance in the 1982 sale notwithstanding, however, both the identification of the sitter and the work’s early provenance have been repeatedly questioned in the intervening years. The sitter does not closely resemble the unfinished portrait of Marie that Gérôme painted in the year they were married, now housed in the Musée Goupil. The great Gérôme scholar Gerald Ackerman suggested that the sitter might be the baronne Nathaniel de Rothschild, known to have been painted by Gérôme in a work that was lost around 1866, though the features of this sitter are not a close match for known depictions of her either. Around 2005 a study by Decourcy McIntosh put forward a theory that the male portrait reflected in the mirror is that of Paul Goupil, possibly a distant relative of Adolphe, whose own wife was perhaps named Marie. Nevertheless, the formality of the present portrait calls into question the idea that the portrait might be of a member of the family, as Gérôme’s portraits of family members tend to be both bust-length and informal in composition.
Current scholarship now suggests the portrait depicts Marie-Anne d'Escoubleau de Sourdis, Madame Charles-Joachim Lefèvre, and was painted by Gérôme during the early years of the 1870s while the artist was working in London to escape the Franco-Prussian war. That the work was more likely painted in London than Paris is further underscored by the Winsor & Newton canvas-maker’s stamp on the reverse. Gérôme is known to have painted a portrait of the businessman and éleveur d'équidés Charles-Joachim Lefèvre in 1872 during the artist's time in England, depicting him leaning against the railing at Newmarket, and it is possible that Lefèvre commissioned Gérôme to paint a companion portrait of his wife as well. This portrait of Charles-Joachim is similarly painted on a Winsor & Newton canvas. 1872 was a particularly momentous year in Lefèvre’s life both personally and professionally. In addition to winning at Newmarket with his horse ‘Reine’ and topping the list of winningest owners in England for the year, 1872 was also the year Charles-Joachim and Marie-Anne, who was widely considered to be a great beauty, were married. As Charles-Joachim bears a strong resemblance to the portrait reflected in the mirror behind the sitter in the present work, and the griffon held in the sitter’s arms is a symbol of fidelity, it is very possible the work may have been commissioned in this same period in celebration of their marriage.
The beautifully rendered detail of this exquisite portrait reflects one of the main hallmarks of Gérôme’s oeuvre as a portraitist - the artist’s continuing response to the model of portraiture established by Ingres. Gérôme’s portraits datable to the 1840s onward demonstrate the artist attempting to instate himself as a worthy heir to the great portraitist of the first half of the 19th century. Certainly the clearest model for the Wrightsman picture is Ingres’s portrait of the comtesse d’Haussonville, now in the Frick Collection, New York. That portrait also features a mirror behind the sitter and was regularly exhibited in Paris throughout the 19th century; it is one of several works by the master that Gérôme quotes freely from in his own portraiture. The extraordinarily quality of the rendering of the satin and other materials in the sitter’s dress is clearly also Gérôme’s response to Ingres’s mastery of painting textiles as well. In the present portrait, however, Gérôme takes this idea even further – capturing the woven texture and pattern of the carpet, the tufted velvet and satin of the chair and wall, and the cool marble of the mantle with its intricate ormolou decorative elements. This emphasis on interior furnishing in addition to the fashion of the sitters stands in contrast to the comparatively simple backgrounds found in Ingres’s portrait work.
A letter of authentication from Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D. dated 5 March 2020 accompanies this painting, and the work will be included in her revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation. We are grateful to Dr. Weeks for her assistance in cataloguing this work as well. We are also grateful to Graydon Parrish for confirming the authenticity of this work.
The provenance in the 1982 sale notwithstanding, however, both the identification of the sitter and the work’s early provenance have been repeatedly questioned in the intervening years. The sitter does not closely resemble the unfinished portrait of Marie that Gérôme painted in the year they were married, now housed in the Musée Goupil. The great Gérôme scholar Gerald Ackerman suggested that the sitter might be the baronne Nathaniel de Rothschild, known to have been painted by Gérôme in a work that was lost around 1866, though the features of this sitter are not a close match for known depictions of her either. Around 2005 a study by Decourcy McIntosh put forward a theory that the male portrait reflected in the mirror is that of Paul Goupil, possibly a distant relative of Adolphe, whose own wife was perhaps named Marie. Nevertheless, the formality of the present portrait calls into question the idea that the portrait might be of a member of the family, as Gérôme’s portraits of family members tend to be both bust-length and informal in composition.
Current scholarship now suggests the portrait depicts Marie-Anne d'Escoubleau de Sourdis, Madame Charles-Joachim Lefèvre, and was painted by Gérôme during the early years of the 1870s while the artist was working in London to escape the Franco-Prussian war. That the work was more likely painted in London than Paris is further underscored by the Winsor & Newton canvas-maker’s stamp on the reverse. Gérôme is known to have painted a portrait of the businessman and éleveur d'équidés Charles-Joachim Lefèvre in 1872 during the artist's time in England, depicting him leaning against the railing at Newmarket, and it is possible that Lefèvre commissioned Gérôme to paint a companion portrait of his wife as well. This portrait of Charles-Joachim is similarly painted on a Winsor & Newton canvas. 1872 was a particularly momentous year in Lefèvre’s life both personally and professionally. In addition to winning at Newmarket with his horse ‘Reine’ and topping the list of winningest owners in England for the year, 1872 was also the year Charles-Joachim and Marie-Anne, who was widely considered to be a great beauty, were married. As Charles-Joachim bears a strong resemblance to the portrait reflected in the mirror behind the sitter in the present work, and the griffon held in the sitter’s arms is a symbol of fidelity, it is very possible the work may have been commissioned in this same period in celebration of their marriage.
The beautifully rendered detail of this exquisite portrait reflects one of the main hallmarks of Gérôme’s oeuvre as a portraitist - the artist’s continuing response to the model of portraiture established by Ingres. Gérôme’s portraits datable to the 1840s onward demonstrate the artist attempting to instate himself as a worthy heir to the great portraitist of the first half of the 19th century. Certainly the clearest model for the Wrightsman picture is Ingres’s portrait of the comtesse d’Haussonville, now in the Frick Collection, New York. That portrait also features a mirror behind the sitter and was regularly exhibited in Paris throughout the 19th century; it is one of several works by the master that Gérôme quotes freely from in his own portraiture. The extraordinarily quality of the rendering of the satin and other materials in the sitter’s dress is clearly also Gérôme’s response to Ingres’s mastery of painting textiles as well. In the present portrait, however, Gérôme takes this idea even further – capturing the woven texture and pattern of the carpet, the tufted velvet and satin of the chair and wall, and the cool marble of the mantle with its intricate ormolou decorative elements. This emphasis on interior furnishing in addition to the fashion of the sitters stands in contrast to the comparatively simple backgrounds found in Ingres’s portrait work.
A letter of authentication from Emily M. Weeks, Ph.D. dated 5 March 2020 accompanies this painting, and the work will be included in her revision to the Jean-Léon Gérôme catalogue raisonné, currently in preparation. We are grateful to Dr. Weeks for her assistance in cataloguing this work as well. We are also grateful to Graydon Parrish for confirming the authenticity of this work.