Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Page 10 – The Winterhalter Catalogue

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Empress Eugénie of 1854 (no. 495)

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Empress Eugénie of 1854 (no. 495)

I have recently received a charming email from a curator of the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, Texas, USA, correcting one of my entries by informing me that no 495, portrait of Empress Eugénie of 1854, is now in the Museum’s collection.

The portrait measures 125 x 95 cm, and it is signed, dated, and inscribed lower centre as painted in Paris in 1854. It is believed to have been commissioned personally by the Empress and paid from her own funds: this fact that was recognised by the French Government in 1881 when it returned the portrait to the Empress in exile together with other paintings and works of art as her private property. The portrait was placed at Eugénie’s home at Farnborough Hill and remained there at least until 1884, when it was gifted to Mme Eugène Rouher (née Marie Cornélie Léontine Conchon (1822-1890)), widow of a prominent Second Empire politician and statesman, and remained in her possession in Paris until her death in 1890. The painting then passed through a number of private collections, and was acquired by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, with funds provided by the Agnes Cullen Arnold Endowment Fund, in 2010.

In spite of its importance, the portrait was exhibited publicly only four times. It was lent by the Empress to the Exposition Universelle of 1855, and to the Vienna Kunstverein in 1856. More than 130 year would pass before the portrait reappeared again, this time at the Winterhalter exhibition in London’s National Gallery and the Petit Palais in Paris in 1987-88. In 2009 it was lent to “Napoleon and Eugenie” exhibition at the Nassau County Museum of Art by its then owner, Christopher Forbes.

The portrait remained well-known through lithographs by Léon Noël (an edition of which was also shown at the Parisian Exposition Universelle of 1855), as well as through a number of copies and miniatures in porcelain and enamel (examples of these abound in public and private collections worldwide). Most recently, of course, it has been popularised as a poster available from countless online retailers.

I am sincerely overjoyed that this work of the utmost historical importance, which is also among the key paintings of Winterhalter’s oeuvre, has finally entered a public collection, where it rightfully belongs.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates

Sunday, 5 February 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates

A number of early portraits in the Winterhalter catalogue were loosely dated from the late 1810s to the early 1820s. The research indicates that from 1818 to 1822 Franz Xaver Winterhalter was apprenticed in Freiburg-im-Bresgau at the studios of Schuler and Herder. Early 1823 he briefly returned to Menzenschwand, leaving for Munich shortly afterwards. Therefore, the date of a number of early portrait drawings and watercolours (see nos 2 – 7, 18 – 20) were updated to c. 1823 to coincide with the artist’s Menzenschwand sojourn of that year; and Menzenschwand was also identified as the most likely place where the early drawings and watercolours would have been painted by the young artist (see nos 1-8, 18-20).

23 Laule Winterhalter

Nos 19 and 20 were dated by Mayer from around 1830. On stylistic grounds I believe these to be earlier works from the Menzenschwand period of c. 1823.

The exception is made for nos 21 and 22: they display a more mature style, and I agree with Mayer who dates them from around c. 1830, and either Karlsruhe or Menzenschwand-Hinterdorf identified as the most likely place where they would have been drawn.

The title of no.5 was amended to Jacob Benedikt Laule (1748-1829), Step-Grandfather of the Artist. The sitter was the second husband of Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s paternal grandmother, Anna Winterhalter (née Schlageter, 1745-1818), whom he married in 1786.

It is believed that no 4 was lithographed by Josef Anton Selb (1784-1832), c. 1826.

For more details, see https://franzxaverwinterhalter.wordpress.com/franz-xaver-winterhalter-works-1805-1830/

© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, 2012

John Lucas vs Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Excerpt from a Review of

John Lucas, portrait painter, 1828-1874: a memoir of his life mainly deduced from the correspondence of his sitters, by his son, Arthur Lucas (London: Methuen 1910)

“Our admiration of the book itself and for Mr Arthur Lucas’s filial piety only increases our regret at remaining unconvinced as to the claims of John Lucas to a place in the front rank of painters. The Victorian era, especially in the earlier years, is in fact a somewhat dismal record of competent mediocrity. Genius, or what remained of it, died with Sir Thomas Lawrence in 1830, and many years were to elapse before it again showed its head above the soil in British art.

“It was a dull, drab period, for which the artists themselves cannot be held wholly responsible. The patrons of art liked paintings which they could understand, and which reflected their own ideas and personalities to the exclusion of the painter’s. Painters were only too complaisant, and under the presidency of Sir Francis Grant mediocrity reigned supreme at the Royal Academy, and thus received the hallmarks of authority…

“The survey of a career like that of John Lucas enables us to understand why in certain circles Winterhalter should have been preferred.”

Review of “Princess Alice” by F.X. Winterhalter (1857)

Review of the portrait of Princess Alice by F.X. Winterhalter (1857)

“The likeness of Princess Alice, taken in 1857, by the Court painter, Herr Winterhalter, presents to our eyes a well-grown young lady of fourteen, who, as the novelists say, might be older. It is a fact very humiliating to physiognomists that the character and expression of a face are greatly influenced by the arrangement of the hair; and we suppose this is the reason why we are not forcibly struck by the resemblance of the young Princess to her parents.

“Nevertheless, we can with little difficulty trace in these delicate features certain general repetitions of the family type. There are “the ripe Guelph cheek and the straight Coburg brow,” though the former is less Guelphic in its ripeness than we have observed to be the case with other cheeks among princes of the blood royal, while the Coburg brow loses a little of its individuality by the partial adoption of a coiffure recently in vogue at the Tuileries.

“Mr Lane has considerately softened the harsh materialism, and modified the Dutch flatness which are so distinctive of the Winterhalter school of painting; and at the same time he has preserved all the best qualities belonging to an artist who is inspired with no comprehensive or elevated ideas of human life.” [See cat. no. 582]

© “Lithographic Portraits of the Royal Family.” Daily News, 22 November 1859, 3.

Review of Four Princess by F.X. Winterhalter (1849)

Review of Four Princess by F.X. Winterhalter (1849):

“This graceful group of royal children is worthy of this courtly painter’s best efforts, and in its pleasing arrangement, the prettiness of the faces and attitudes, and cheerfulness of the landscape, one is almost unconsciously reminded of his first work by which he achieved celebrity, and though the vistas of the Isle of Wight may not be as classical as the heights of Fiesole, still there is somehow an identity of touch and feeling in both figure and landscape, which makes it the more regrettable that this accomplished painter should ever have abandoned his first style.

“Mr Winterhalter’s sojourn in England has, however, not been void of the benefit which ever accrues to those who come in contacts with its colourists. A more chastened feeling pervades his family groups, and the light and shade is more pleasantly subdued, the varied expressions of these pretty juvenile heads, from the pensive to the sportive, are rendered with masterly discrimination. The motive, too, of arranging flowers, a favourite pastime, is gracefully told. The way in which the lights and darks of the dresses are contrasted show no less the well-skilled hand in telling effects. The neat and careful modelling of the engraving, not less than the pleasing effect of the design, entitle the engraver, Mr. G. Richardson Jackson, to the highest commendation.” (See cat. no. 359)

Exhibition of “The Royal Family” and “Prince of Wales” by F.X. Winterhalter in 1847

Review of the Exhibition of The Royal Family and Prince of Wales by F.X. Winterhalter at St James’s Palace in 1847:

“The Banqueting Hall, in St James’s Palace, has been turned into an exhibition room, and the public are admitted by orders from the Lord Chamberlain to see “the two royal pictures,” painted by Winterhalter, for the Queen, in January of the present year.

“The small picture is a full-length portrait of the Prince of Wales in a sailor’s dress – a black straw cap on his head, little bits of blue about his shirt, black horn-buttons to his white jean trousers, his handkerchief tied about his neck in a sailor’s knot, and his hands stuffed deep into the pockets of his trousers. Such is a description of the picture, but little can be said in favour of it as a work of art. The attitude is easy enough, but the face wants character. What would it have been in Sir Joshua Reynolds’s hands? Look at his Master Crewe as Henry VIII., so full of character and colour. With all its defects, this portrait of the Prince is a national picture. One warms to the dress, and “Rule, Britannia,” and “Ye mariners of England,” rush willingly to the lips. [Cat. no. 319]

“The second of “the two royal pictures” is what painters call a family group. It is a very large picture, representing the Queen and Prince Albert and their five children. It is almost as much an indoor as an outdoor scene. The Queen and the Prince are represented seated on a sofa – the Queen in a white dress and the order of the Garter, and the Prince in a suit of black, with black silk stockings. On the Queen’s right, and standing by her side, is the Prince of Wales, in a red velvet dress, and immediately in front of the Queen is her Majesty’s second son, in the act of running to play with his three sisters, who form a charming group on the left of the composition. The two elder Princesses are playing with their youngest sister on a cushion on the ground, and the Prince Albert is represented touching the Queen’s hand, and directing her attention to the group before her, while his left hand hangs lackadaisically down, as if he was fond of showing off his wristband. On the Prince’s left is a table, with fruit upon it, and on her Majesty’s right is a vase of flowers. [Cat.no. 316]

“Such is a brief description of a very interesting picture; one, however, which cannot be compared for a moment with the Pembroke family at Wilton, the Marlborough family at Blenheim, or the Cornaro family at Northumberland House, but richer in colour than we had been led to expect from the pictures, at Sir Robert Peel’s, of the Queen and the Prince by the same artist. The “exhibition,” if such it may be called, will well repay a visit. We may add that the two pictures are to be engraved – both, we believe, by Mr. Cousins, who never suffers a work to pass from his hands without adding to its excellences.”

Portrait of Queen Adelaide (1849) by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

Review of F.X. Winterhalter’s portrait of Queen Adelaide (1849, oil on canvas, HM Queen Elizabeth II, cat nos 357 & 358), in Caledonian Mercury, 4 March 1850:

“It is not generally known, that her late Majesty the Queen Dowager sat to Winterhalter for her portrait within a very short period of her demise; indeed, the last sitting took place within a month of her death. The portrait was painted expressly for her late Majesty’s brother, the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, and is a fine specimen of Winterhalter’s talent.

“It represents the Queen Dowager in a sitting posture, and admirably reserves the features of the lamented deceased. There is nothing painful in the expression, as might be apprehended by those unacquainted with the Christian calmness and humility with which her late Majesty contemplated her approaching dissolution almost up to the moment when this world closed upon her, and the picture is altogether a highly interesting work of art.

“Three copies have been made by Mr. W. Corden, of Old Windsor, respectively for her Majesty the Queen, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, and his Serene Highness Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar; in addition to which Mr Lane has made a very beautiful lithographic drawing of the portrait for private distribution. The original picture is already on its way to Germany.”

Portrait of Virginie de Sainte-Aldegonde by Hermann Winterhalter at Christie’s, 1 Feb 2012

Tuesday, 10 January 2012

Portrait of Virginie de Sainte-Aldegonde by Hermann Winterhalter at Christie’s, 1 Feb 2012

A watercolour by Hermann Winterhalter is coming up for auction at Christie’s London, in their South Kensington rooms, on 1 February 2012, sale no 4219, 19^th Century European Art, lot 96.

This very fine and charming watercolour is a copy by Hermann Winterhalter after a celebrated portrait by his brother, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73), of Mlle Virginie Marie Louise de Sainte-Aldegonde, the future Duchesse de Rochechouart-Mortemart (1834-1900), of 1839 [Winterhalter Catalogue, no 162].

The portrait shows the five-year-old Virginie seated out of doors, in white dress with red patterned sash around her waist, pantaloons and black lace-up shoes showing from underneath the skirt. Her hair is parted in the middle and fashionably arranged in cascading ringlets. She is leaning, boldly and innocently, on a massive dog, and puts her arm around its neck. The pair is placed in a seaside setting on a small sandy hillock with sparse shrubbery on either side of the picture; a seascape with swirling clouds is visible in the background.

Winterhalter underscores the high social standing of the girl (she was a scion of an old aristocratic family) with such trappings of aristocratic portraiture as landscape setting, an architectural detail of a building in the background, as well as the dog itself, most likely a Neapolitan mastiff, used for hunting, which was historically a privilege reserved for the land-owning aristocracy. At the same time, the motif of a girl with a dog within a landscape and a quasi-Mediterranean setting give the picture a more general appeal of a genre composition that transcends the strict limitation of portraiture. This ‘universality’ was of major importance in the annals of the Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century portrait painting, and Franz Xaver Winterhalter succeeds here with aplomb.

As such, this painting can be placed among other Winterhalter’s children portraits of the era, that strike a careful balance between a portrait and a genre painting, such as Princess Maria Colonna by a Garden Pool (1834, oil on canvas, Private Collection, no 91) and Children of Baron von Schweitzer (1835, oil on canvas, Private Collection, no 104).

The original portrait by Franz Xaver Winterhalter was lent to the exhibition Winterhalter: Portraits de Dames du Second Empire, at Galerie Jacques Seligmann, in Paris, in 1928, by its then owner and descendant of the sitter, Comte de Mortemart (no 18). (It is presumed that the portrait remains by descent in the family.)

The portrait was lithographed by Alphonse Martinet (1821-1861), and published by Goupil & Vibert on 1 June 1844; the print was subsequently exhibited by Martinet at the 1844 Salon as Jeune fille avec un chien (no 2372).

Hermann Winterhalter, an academically-trained painter and a gifted artist in his own right, frequently assisted his older brother, Franz Xaver, with preparation of copies. Given the fact that Hermann only joined Franz Xaver’s studio in Paris no earlier than 1840, this wonderful watercolour can be dated from around the early 1840s, and as such may have been prepared by Hermann Winterhalter expressly as an aide for the lithographer Martinet in preparation of a print after the portrait.

The watercolour measures 21.4 x 27 cm; signed lower right H. Winterhalter c.; and estimated at £ 2,000-£4,000. Earlier provenance is currently unknown. It has been added to my catalogue of Hermann Winterhalter’s works (under the provisionary no 137).

© Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, 2012

Notes to the Winterhalter Catalogue Project

Monday, 9 January 2012

Notes to the Winterhalter Catalogue Project

The primary and erstwhile objective for the online catalogue of works by Franz Xaver and Hermann Winterhalter is to maintain an up-to-date CATALOGUE RAISONNE of their works, and attend to additions, changes, alterations, and corrections as soon as they come to hand, announcing them in the blogging section of the site.

For example, a watercolour by Hermann Winterhalter is coming up for auction at Christie’s in London in February. I am currently preparing an entry on this work, and it will be posted accordingly in the respective section of the online catalogue.

A slightly more ambitious side project is to utilise the blogging section to announce the appearance of works by the Winterhalter brothers on the art market; at various exhibitions; and in online and printed publications (past and present).

This is where YOUR HELP would be invaluable!

In spite of my best efforts, I am not omnipresent, and your ‘heads up’ on the works of the Winterhalter brothers at auctions, exhibitions, in the media, and in print would be most welcome and most invaluable!

Last but not least, this is also very much an awareness raising exercise in the most humble hope that those who may have works by Franz Xaver and Hermann Winterhalter in their collections would get in touch and provide further invaluable information to this project of the utmost worthiness (absolute privacy and discretion are guaranteed).

Once again, I can be contacted through the COMMENTS section of this site, or by email at vonreisberg[at]gmail[dot]com.

I look forward and in anticipation to your comments, additions, corrections, and the most welcome contributions!

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg, Melbourne, 9 January 2012

Catalogue of works by F.X. Winterhalter Uploaded!

Sunday, 8 January 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter (1805-73), the German-born internationally renowned elite portrait specialist, has been a subject of my dedicated research, spanning a period of more than twenty years.

The research has resulted in a catalogue consisting of nearly 1,000 entries, and includes painting, works on paper (drawings, pastels, and watercolours), as well as original prints by F.X. Winterhalter after his own works as well as after those of others. The information has been drawn from printed and online sources that date from the 1820s to the present, and new information is unearthed regularly.

A printed version of the catalogue has been published as a limited edition in 2007. A concise PDF edition was uploaded online shortly afterwards. The response to both editions has been quite overwhelming. I have received numerous emails from a wide variety of individuals worldwide – directors and curators of public and private museums, galleries, and collections; art specialist of numerous auction houses; owners of the actual artworks; descendants of Winterhalter’s sitters; as well as numerous private individuals, academics, and researchers – with an invaluable input into the catalogue.

With their selfless and invaluable assistance, as well as with my own further research and investigation, the catalogue continues to grow. While it is still very much a non-remunerated, self-funded labour of love, the publication of a more comprehensive online edition (ideally) would allow for more immediate and up-to-date updates and alterations.

With respect to those who purchased the printed edition, and those who may have referenced it, I am retaining the original numbering of entries. The catalogue entries that have been added since 2007 are designated by letters a, b, c, etc.

As per the printed publication, all catalogue entries for works executed after 1831 and before 1866 have been broken down into five-year periods. Those works that have been attributed to Winterhalter (or where indeed his authorship is doubtful) are placed at the end of the last 1866-1873 chapter.

All portraits painted within the same year are listed in alphabetical order by the sitter’s name; unidentified sitters and subject paintings are placed at the end of their respective years. For convenience, portraits of members of the French, Belgian, and British Royal Families, painted within the same year, are mainly grouped together in the order of seniority and irrespective of their varying courtesy titles.

You will find all catalogue entries listed on the BLOG PAGES, the links to which ARE ON THE RIGHT HAND SIDE OF THE HOME PAGE. Thanks to the wonders of the internet and this website, the catalogue is also FULLY SEARCHABLE through the top right-hand-side search box.

As always, this is still very much a Research-in-Progress, and comments, additional information, images, and research materials are welcome. All contributions will be gratefully acknowledged.

As this is a concise list of works with selected images only, I encourage everyone to contact me through the COMMENTS section for the following information:

Catalogue entries / essays on each artwork;
Sitters’ Biographies and Lists of Descendants (where known);
Provenance of each artwork;
Exhibition History;
Detailed known bibliography (from 1830s to the present day);
Lists of known copies / versions / replicas;
Lists of known prints / lithographs / engravings after each artwork.

Eugene Barilo von Reisberg