Lot Essay
Angelica Catalani (1779-1849) was the leading Italian soprano of her day. The daughter of a primo basso, she was an instinctive singer and made her operatic début at the Teatro La Fenice in Venice at the age of sixteen, embarking on a triumphant career which was to last for forty years. Having toured the great opera houses of Italy, she sang in Lisbon in 1801 and in Paris between May and September 1806. There she met Vigée Le Brun, just back from three years in England, who was to recall in her Memoirs in 1835/6: 'The first person I befriended on my return from London was Mme Catalani, then the darling of Paris. This great singer was young and beautiful. Her voice was one of the most extraordinary I have ever heard and her incredible range was coupled with a lightness of touch that bordered on the miraculous. She did not possess Mme Grassini's magic power of expression, but delighted the ear in the manner of a nightingale. I painted a portrait of this charming woman; wishing to keep it myself, I hung it next to that of Mme Grassini where it remains to this day. I did not waste any time in re-establishing my musical evenings and Mme Catalani had the goodness to come and sing for us, much to my friends' delight ... ' (ed. 1989, p.265).
Napoleon promised the singer an income of 100,000 francs if she would remain in France but her sympathies did not lie with the Emperor and she came to England, where she delighted audiences at Covent Garden and Drury Lane with her renditions of 'God Save the King' and 'Rule Britannia' and in 1812 sang the role of Susanna in the first London production of Le Nozze di Figaro. Catalani returned to France under Louis XVIII, when she was again in touch with Vigée Le Brun (see Princess Natalie Kourakin, Souvenirs des voyages de la Princess Natalie Kourakin, 1816-1830, 1903, pp.192-212). The singer retired in 1832 to a villa near Florence; leaving Italy in 1849 to escape an outbreak of cholera, she died of the diesase in Paris on June 13th.
She is shown in the present picture presumably singing an aria from the music sheets on the pianoforte. The bound score is inscribed Semiramis, the title of operas by Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Caldara, Baldassare Galuppi, Christoph Willibald Gluck and many others.
A copy of the present painting is in the palace of Archangelskoye near Moscow
Napoleon promised the singer an income of 100,000 francs if she would remain in France but her sympathies did not lie with the Emperor and she came to England, where she delighted audiences at Covent Garden and Drury Lane with her renditions of 'God Save the King' and 'Rule Britannia' and in 1812 sang the role of Susanna in the first London production of Le Nozze di Figaro. Catalani returned to France under Louis XVIII, when she was again in touch with Vigée Le Brun (see Princess Natalie Kourakin, Souvenirs des voyages de la Princess Natalie Kourakin, 1816-1830, 1903, pp.192-212). The singer retired in 1832 to a villa near Florence; leaving Italy in 1849 to escape an outbreak of cholera, she died of the diesase in Paris on June 13th.
She is shown in the present picture presumably singing an aria from the music sheets on the pianoforte. The bound score is inscribed Semiramis, the title of operas by Alessandro Scarlatti, Antonio Caldara, Baldassare Galuppi, Christoph Willibald Gluck and many others.
A copy of the present painting is in the palace of Archangelskoye near Moscow