Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Page 9 – The Winterhalter Catalogue

MAJOR UPDATES: Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1840-45

MAJOR UPDATES: André Portraits by Franz Xaver and Hermann Winterhalter

No 277 – portraits of Edouard André (1833-94); and Jean André (1794-1850) – I acknowledge that the authorship of both portraits is disputed; and that both portraits are also ascribed to Hermann Winterhalter. The matter is complicated by the fact that members of the André family were painted by both Franz Xaver and Hermann Winterhalter.

Whereas the portraits of Edouard André father, Ernest André (1803-64, no 275) and step-mother, Louise Gudin, Mme André (1806-73, no 276), are clearly signed by Franz Xaver Winterhalter, no 277 is only known from a copy (note that in numerous Musée Jacquemart-André guides, all three portraits are erroneously identified as being by Hermann Winterhalter). Furthermore, Wild records childhood portraits of Edouard André by Hermann (q.v. no. 1) rather than Franz Xaver Winterhalter.

No 277a has been variously ascribed as a portrait of Jean André (1794-1850) or Louis-Eugène André (1800-1861), and as being by Franz Xaver or Hermann Winterhalter respectively. Once again, Wild does not list either of the sitters on Franz Xaver’s list, but enters Mr. Louis André on Hermann Winterhalter’s list.

Clearly, further research is required for both portraits. Therefore, for the time being, nos 277 and 277a are left on Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s list with the note about disputed authorship. Both portraits are also entered on Hermann Winterhalter’s list (q.v. nos 1 and 85 respectively).

Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil

In a recent email from a fellow researcher, I was alerted to the incongruity of no 303, Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, which was dated from around the middle of the 1840s.

The earlier provenance of this work is unknown. It appeared at Sotheby’s Zürich, Europäische Malerei und Moderne und Zeitgenössische Druckgraphik, 25.09.2000, lot 110, unsigned and undated, as a portrait of Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil, by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. It was initially entered it into my catalogue as such.

Further research revealed that a portrait of Don Pedro, Kaiser von Brasilien was mentioned by Wild as work by Hermann Winterhalter, rather than Franz Xaver, with a possibility of it being drawn in Karlsruhe.

On the basis of the image, the Emperor looks like he is in his 50s. This would mean that the portrait is definitely not from the 1840s, but probably dates from the 1870s. This would also coincide with the fact that Pedro II was in Europe and visited Germany between 1871 and 1872, and then again between 1876 and 1877. I have not been able to find out yet exact dates of his presence in Germany, and / or especially in Karlsruhe, where both Franz Xaver and Hermann lived at the time.

Purely on the basis of the image, I believe a correct date for the drawing should be around 1876-77, when the Emperor would have been in about 50-52 years old (this also corresponds with contemporaneous photographs of the Emperor taken around this time). Thus this could only be a work by Hermann Winterhalter, as Franz Xaver died in 1873.

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1840-45

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1840-45

Following updates had been made on the above-mentioned webpage:

No 191a – Portrait of François Bouchot – the actual location of this drawing is currently unknown; the work is known from a lithograph by Emile Lassalle, c. 1841-2, at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris (inv. Est. 5326);

Nos 201a and 201b – these portrait drawings were sold at L’Empire à Fontainebleau, Osenat, Fontainebleau, 2.12.2007, lot 446, pair € 2,000;

No 228 – Portrait of Baronne Mathilde de Bussière – the following note added: Franz Wild’s reference to the portrait is presumably Mlle Hagermann, Paris, jusqu’aux genoux, 1843. By the time the portrait was painted, Mathilde Hagermann was already married (in 1839) to Alfred Rénouard de Bussière. It is possible that the portrait actually represents her sister, Mlle Adèle Anna Hagermann (1825-1898), who m. 1846 Comte Jacques Robert de Pourtalès (1821-74);

No 236a – Feodora Fürstin zu Hohenlohe- Langenburg (1807-1872) – appeared at Doyle New York, Modern & Contemporary and European & American Art, 22 May 2007, lot 1026;

No 266 – Portrait of a Lady – the portrait was sold at Christie’s London, Old Master & 19th Century Paintings, 9 Dec 2009, lot 195, £61,250;

No 280a – Portrait de Comte de Paris – Succession de feus Mgr le Comte & Mme la Comtesse de Paris, Christie’s Paris, 14 Oct 2008, lot 316, sold € 108,500;

No 302 – Alexander Herzog von Wurttemberg – Knaupp, Frühjahrsauktion, 14-16 May 2009, no 1623, sold € 14,000.

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1836-1840

Monday, 25 June 2012

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1836-1840

Following updates had been made on the above-mentioned webpage:

No 107 – L’Amour Maternel – the painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1836, no 1852;

No 108 – Un Chien Epagnuel – the painting was exhibited at the Salon of 1836, no 1853;

No 109 – Principe di Cimitile di San Severino – engraved c.1838 by Charles Eden Wagstaff (c.1798-1850);

No 111a – Italienerin mit Kind – the painting was recently sold at Christie’s New York, 19th Century European and Orientalist Art, 12 April 2007, lot 117, $180,000;

No 111c – Study of a Seated Beggar Girl – image added (courtesy of Michael Venator);

Nos 112 and 113 – sitters identified as Antuanetta Petrovna Lazareva, née HSH Antoinette von Biron, Prinzessin von Kurland (1813-82), and her eldest daughter, Daria Lazarevna Lazareva, later Marquise Venance d’Abzac de Mayac (1835-); location of both portraits remains unknown;

No 124 – M. Dubois d’Angers – image added, but please note that the authorship of the painting is not confirmed; appeared at Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Estampes, Tableaux et Dessins Ancienne et Moderne, Extrême-Orient, 24 Jun 2009, lot 44;

No 141 – Jeune Fille de l’Ariccia – sold at Sotheby’s New York, 23 October 1997, lot 109, $1,762,500; second highest price paid for a work by Franz Xaver Winterhalter;

No 143 – Anne, Comtesse de Plaisance (1815-1878), later Duchesse de Plaisance, née Mlle Bertier de Wagram – image added;

No 148 – Portrait of an Elderly Lady – appeared at Christie’s London, Fine Continental Pictures of the 19^th and 20^th Centuries, 11 February 1977, lot 70;

No 156 – Portrait of the Duc d’Aumale – recent research indicated that the portrait may have been among the works destroyed by revolutionary crowds at the Palais des Tuileries in February 1848;

No 171 – Louis-Philippe, Duc de Chartres, à Reichenau – the portrait is based on a detail from a painting by Auguste Couder (1789, London – 1873, Paris), Une leçon de géographie au collège de Raichenau (Mgr le Duc d’Orléans), exhibited at the 1819 Salon (no 242), untraced since 1848;

No 183 – Portrait de Fillette à la Rose – the present work could be a portrait of either Mlle Audenet [149] or one of the de Rigny sisters [160].

No 184 – Freiin von Eichthal with her Son – the portrait is dated around the 1840s on stylistic grounds; identity of the sitters is unknown, as in the early 1840s there several women with young sons in the Eichthal family.

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1831-1835

Monday, 25 June 2012

Catalogue Updates – Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1831-1835

Following updates had been made on the above-mentioned webpage:

No 83 – Roman Genre Scene – the painting was lithographed by Léon Noël;

No 93 – the title updated to Freiherr von Herring; present location unknown; the work was previously in the Murray Adams-Acton Collection, c. 1930s;

No 99c – Friedrich Stammann – the sitter’s dates were identified as 1807-1880;

No 103 – Mlle Planat de la Faye – this portrait was presumably exhibited at Salon 1835, no 2166;

No 104 – Children of Baron von Schweitzer – the painting was recently sold at Pierre Bergé & Associés, Paris, 26 Nov 2008, € 32,000; the identity of the children remains unknown;

No 105 – the painting is mentioned in Wild 1894 as Le Comte Tascher de Lapagerie, 1835 [sic]; the sitter is difficult to identify, as there were a number of counts de Tascher de La Pagerie living at that time in Paris: two of the most likely sitters are Jean, Comte de Tascher de La Pagerie (1779-1858) or Louis, Comte de Tascher de La Pagerie (1787-1861);

No 106 – Portrait of a Seated Lady – the drawing was recently sold by Christie’s South Kensington, Old Master Pictures & Drawings, 12.12.2003, lot 568, £ 1,410.

Dresden Portrait Re-Identified as a ‘Lost’ portrait of Augusta Großherzogin von Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1822-1916)

Dresden Portrait Re-Identified as Winterhalter’s ‘Lost’ portrait of Augusta Großherzogin von Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1822-1916)

The recent catalogue of Victorian Miniatures in the Collection of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II has helped me to shed light on the portrait in the collection of Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, known hitherto only as Damenbildnis [see no 321, Works by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 1846-1850].

The painting can now be fully identified as a portrait of Augusta Großherzogin von Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1822-1916), née Princess of Cambridge, painted at Windsor Castle between 7 and 16 October 1846.

The following research information backs up my suggestion:

A miniature enamel copy of this portrait (5.0 x 4.0 cm) by John Simpson (1811-aft 1871), signed, dated, and identified as a copy after Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s portrait of Princess Augusta of Cambridge, Hereditary Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, of 1846, is in the collection of HM Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 421918).
A further copy of this portrait by Henry Melville (fl 1846-86) (oil on canvas, 61 x 50.8 cm, oval), is also in the collection of HM Queen Elizabeth II (RCIN 406676).
Both copies were commissioned by Queen Victoria after the original portrait by F.X. Winterhalter, which was given to the sitter’s husband, Friedrich Wilhelm Großherzog von Mecklenburg-Strelitz (1819-1904).

There are numerous references to confirm the dating of the portrait from October 1846:

The portrait was commissioned by Queen Victoria from Franz Xaver Winterhalter, who was in England from September 1846 to February 1847 [Oliver Millar, Victorian Pictures, 1: 284]
One of Queen Victoria’s ladies-in-waiting, Hon. Eleanor Stanley, wrote in a letter from Windsor Castle, dated 7 October 1846: “I was on the whole day with some Royalty or other, as the Grand Duchess [of Mecklenburg] sat for her picture from eleven till two to Winterhalter, and desired [me] to go and sit with her… After lunch she had another sitting, and I attended again till four o’clock, when she went out driving with the Queen…” [Eleanor Stanley, Letters (London: 1916), 136].
The portrait is mentioned in Queen Victoria’s diary in an entry for 16 October 1846, where the portrait is described as ‘quite beautiful & so boldly, as well as finely painted’ [Oliver Millar, Victorian Pictures (London: 1992), 1: 326].
It was given as a joint present from Queen Victoria and the Dowager Queen Adelaide to the sitter’s husband, then the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, on 17 October 1846 [ibid].
The portrait is mentioned on the list of portraits by F.X. Winterhalter, published posthumously by the artist’s nephew, Franz Wild, in 1894, where it appears among other 1846 portraits by the artist [Franz Wild, Neckrologe…, 38].

Confirmation from the Galerie Neue Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden, of this identification is pending further correspondence.

Winterhalter Exhibition at Galeries Jacques Selgmann, Paris, 1928

Saturday, 17 March 2012

Winterhalter Exhibition at Galeries Jacques Selgmann, Paris, 1928

I recently came across a facsimile copy of a very rare and valuable exhibition catalogue of Winterhalter’s works, which took place at Galeries Jacques Selgimann et Fils in Paris in 1928. The exhibition was ostensibly inspired by the recent sale of Empress Eugénie’s estate in London, which included a number of important portraits by Franz Xaver Winterhalter. The exhibition was organised by the Parisian art dealer Jacques Seligmann, who purchased Winterhalter’s portrait of the Empress in the 18^th-Century dress from the above-mentioned sale, with the curatorial assistance from Armand Dayot, a French art critic and historian, who also contributed an important introductory essay to the catalogue.

The examination of the catalogue resulted in the following catalogue updates:

– Armand Dayot mentions a portrait of a Countess von Grafenstein as an outstanding example of Winterhalter’s early paintings of the Munich period. Further information on this portrait is unknown; neither is the exact identity of the sitter, as there were several women of that title during the late 1820s / early 1830s. It is provisionally placed in the catalogue raisonné under cat no 39b.

– A brief note to the portrait of Mlle Paule Heine-Furtado (see cat no 809a) states that the portrait shows the sitter at the age of 16. This places the portrait around c.1863-64. Nevertheless, purely on stylistic grounds, I believe this to be a later painting, dating from c. 1866-67, which also coincides with Mlle Heine-Furtado’s first marriage to the Duc d’Elchingen, Prince de La Moskowa (see illustration left).

1846 Pourtales Winterhalter

– The sitter’s name in the cat no 313 has been altered to that of Mlle Marguerite Renouard de Buissière, Comtesse Auguste de Pourtalès (1840-1926) rather than that of her cousin, Mlle Mélanie de Bussière, Comtesse Edmond de Pourtalès (1838-1919), as was stated in Winterhalter 1987/88 (see illustration right).

– The exhibition included a portrait of Anna Thillon, a famous opera singer (see cat no 891). This is the only item in the exhibition catalogue with a note regarding its provenance. According to the catalogue note, it was commissioned by composer Daniel-François-Esprit Auber (1782-1871); bequeathed by him to composer and theatre director Camille du Locle (1832-1903); and bequeathed by the latter to Opéra Comique, Paris, c. 1871, where it was badly damaged by fire in 1887: “Fort heureusement le visage d’une beauté si tendrement rayonnante, a été miraculeusement épargné ainsi que le frais décolleté où fleurit un petit bouquet délicieusement peint.” It is perhaps a later restoration of the portrait that impedes its full authentication as a Winterhalter original.

Among the most felicitous discoveries was that Hermann Winterhalter was not overlooked! Dayot dedicates at least a full page to Hermann in his introductory essay, and states: “Sa clientèle de modèles n’atteignit pas à la hauteur hiérarchique de celle de son frère, mais il trouva parfois cependant de flatteuses occasions d’exercer avec succès son réel talent de peintre de la figure, comme dans l’exécution des beaux portraits d’Amaury Duval et de Mme Furtado, pour ne citer que deux de ses meilleures peintures.”

Neither further details nor present location of these two portraits by Hermann Winterhalter (i.e. those of Eugène Amaury Pineux Duval, dit Amaury Duval (1808-1885) and Mme Cécile Furtado-Heine (1821-1896), née Furtado) are presently known; and only the portrait of Mme Furtado-Heine was shown at the exhibition (no 10). The latter was also included in Franz Wild’s posthumous list of Hermann Winterhalter’s works.

Both works have been entered in my preliminary catalogue of Hermann Winterhalter’s works as nos 139 and 16 respectively.

Saturday, 03 March 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates – Portrait of Duchesse de Morny

I am pleased to add a new image to my website – a portrait of Duchesse Sophie de Morny (1838-96). The image appeared in a blog entry at http://oliaklodvenitiens.wordpress.com; and I was alerted to its existence by a colleague and fellow Winterhalter enthusiast, Emmanuel Burlion (thank you!).

Unfortunately, no further information about the date, size, provenance, history, or current location of this portrait is available at the moment.

However, it is most likely to be a portrait referred to in the posthumous list of works compiled by Franz Xaver Winterhalter’s nephew, Franz Wild, as La Duchesse de Morny, velour bleu, 1868 (cf. Wild 1894, 45; Winterhalter 1987/88, 235 (no 371); Barilo von Reisberg 2007, no 846).

The research indicates that Winterhalter painted the Russian-born Duchesse de Morny on at least five separate occasions (see catalogue entries nos 725, 752, 781, 804, 846). Of these, only one portrait was previously identified with any certainty: no 752 (1863, oil on canvas, 94 x 73 cm, Musée National du Château de Compiègne). Another portrait, no 804 (c. 1865, oil on canvas) appeared in an 1866 watercolour by Jean Sorieul (1824-71) of the bedroom study of the Duc de Morny at the Hôtel de Lassay (collection Pierre Fabius, Paris, 1978) and was later reproduced in a c. 1920s Spanish publication on 19^th-Century painting as being in a Private Collection. Its present location and further information remain unknown.

It is therefore a thrill to add such a rare find as another image by Franz Xaver Winterhalter to my repository of knowledge on the artist. It is now placed on the https://franzxaverwinterhalter.wordpress.com/franz-xaver-winterhalter-works-1866-1873/ page of the catalogue under no 846.

Friday, 10 February 2012

25 Sigl_Vespermann Winterhalter

Friday, 10 February 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates

Another new image is that of no 28e – the portrait of the renowned Bavarian sculptor, Ludwig von Schwanthaler, of c. 1825-26, which was recently posted on http://stadtmuseum.bayerische-landesbibliothek-online.de/. Schwanthaler was a student at the Munich Academy around the same time as Winterhalter, and it is most likely that the portrait stems from this date, and prior to the sculptor’s departure forItaly in 1826. The dating of the portrait is also helped by a prominent watermark on the paper, which bears the date 1826.

The same website yielded another image of a work which was previously unknown to me, and it is with great pleasure that I am adding a new entry to the Catalogue Raisonne – no 28f, portrait of the celebrated opera singer, Katharina Sigl-Vespermann (1802-1877), of c. 1825. As per the explanation above, it is most likely that Winterhalter created the original portrait drawing on which this lithograph was based (it is signed in plate lower right Winterhalter fecit).

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

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates – Travels in Germany

Thursday, 9 February 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates – Travels in Germany

It has been often claimed that upon completion of his studies at the Bavarian Academy of Arts, Winterhalter travelled widely; and there are even erroneous claims that his first tour of Italy took place in 1828. The fact remains that in 1827-1828 Winterhalter did do some travel and sightseeing, but not only he did not cross German borders, he did not even cross the borders of the Kingdom of Bavaria.

As I write in my forthcoming dissertation on the artist:

The artist completed his studies at the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts in summer of 1827, and undertook a sabbatical travelling to Landshut, Regensburg, Nürenberg, Pommersfelden, and other towns. He visited museums, galleries, and historical buildings, exclaiming in a letter to his father: “Man muß etwas sehen, um es zu machen!”^{^[1]} It is interesting to observe that at this time Italy was preferred destination for German and European artists.^{^[2]} Winterhalter mentions numerous comings and goings of fellow painters to and from Rome, and even his father urged him to go to Italy “wie alle anderen Maler”.^{^[3]} However, Winterhalter remained immune to the allure of the south, and throughout his post-academic journeys he did not even cross Bavarian borders. It would seem that Ludwig Tieck’s (1773-1853) widely popular Franz Sternbalds Wanderungen (1798), where one of the characters advises an aspiring artist against travelling to Italy with the following words: “You will not become an Italian and you will not be able to remain a German… we are not in favour of antiquity… our subject is Nordic nature”,^{^[4]} was more influential on Winterhalter’s psyche that Goethe’s famous German longing for South. It is possible, that the inherent reluctance ofGermany’s lower social classes to move beyond one’s domains, financial restrictions, and stipend limitations also came into consideration at this point in time, thus preventing the artist from travelling to Italy and opting instead to return to Munich.

I am pleased to add further images to my catalogue – nos 32a and 32b – that illustrate this period of Winterhalter’s career. These images come courtesy of a private collector, who has an enviable collection of Winterhalter’s drawings and studies (as well as a number of outstanding works on paper by other artists).

[1] “One has to see it in order to make it”: letter from Franz Xaver inMunich to his parents in Menzenschwand, 3 August 1827; quoted in Mayer 1998, 92.

[2] See further discussion on this subject in Ulrich Finke, German Painting from Romanticism to Expressionism (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), 31.

[3] „… like all other artists…“, quoted in Mayer 1998, 25.

[4] Quoted in Finke 1974, 18.

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates

Wednesday, 8 February 2012

Franz Xaver Winterhalter – Catalogue Updates

Very few known engravings and lithographs from Winterhalter’s Freiburg-im-Bresgau period have survived. I emphasise the word known as a number of prints on which Winterhalter may have worked or collaborated were published without bearing his name in margin under image as was the custom of the day.

The research indicates that the majority of Winterhalter’s known prints (i.e. the ones bearing his name in margin under image) were executed during his Munich period. Unless a more exact date has been discovered, the dates for Munich period prints can be roughly amended to c. 1823-1830.

Winterhalter’s involvement in print production was varied. He was employed to create charcoal or watercolour copies of paintings as guides or aids for lithographers and / or actual drawings on lithographic stone from which prints were to be made (these are usually marked Gez[eichnet]. von Winterhalter: see nos 25 – 28; or Lith. von Winterhalter: see no 29a). Winterhalter also produced original drawings or watercolours which were later lithographed by the artist himself and / or other printmakers (these are usually marked Winterhalter fecit: for example, see nos 28c, 28f, etc).

Nos 23 and 24 support an argument that at some point there were in existence original drawings and watercolours by Winterhalter which were either copies after works by other artists, or his own original compositions created expressly to be engraved and / or lithographed. Unfortunately, most of these works have not been located to date, and most of them are only known from lithographs created after them (as indicated in the catalogue entries nos 28b, 28c, 28e, 28f, etc.)

The research indicates that Winterhalter’s lithographic output during the Munich period can be roughly divided into three sections: prints after the Old Masters; prints after contemporary portraits; and prints after contemporary artists. The numerical order of the catalogue list has been amended slightly to group these items accordingly.

Recent research has uncovered further lithographs by Winterhalter after the Old Masters, which form new entries on the list:

– no 24d – a lithograph after Giovanno Francesco Caroto (1470-1546);

– no 24e – a lithograph after Adrian Brouwer (c.1605-c.1638)

– no 24f – a lithograph after David Teniers the Younger (1610-1690)

– no 24h – a lithograph after after Carlo Maratta (1625-1713)

– no 24g – a lithograph after [a painting attributed to] Sir Anthony van Dyck (1599-1641), though conflicting evidence points that the latter work could also have been done by Hermann Winterhalter.

As Munich was predominantly Winterhalter’s base between 1823 and 1830, it is identified as the most likely place where these works would have been created. Works that are known to have been produced during Winterhalter’s travels in Germany in 1827 (especially in Landshut – see nos 31a and 32b); as well as those drawn or painted in Karlsruhe are marked accordingly.

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