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Attributed to Claude Deruet (French, 1588-1660)
Joan of Arc
…
See original version (French)
210
-
Attributed to Claude Deruet (French, 1588-1660)
Joan of Arc
…
See original version (French)
Estimate €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Attributed to Claude Deruet (French, 1588-1660)
Joan of Arc
Oil on canvas.
Joan of Arc's coat of arms top left.
Height 63 Width 51.5 cm.
Old restorations and lifting.
Provenance: Haldat du Lys family, Charente.
Bibliography:
- Henri Wallon, "Jeanne d'Arc", Paris, Firmin Didot, 1876, work reproduced p.472.
- Charles Nicolas Alexandre Haldat du Lys, "Examen critique de l'histoire de Jeanne d'Arc, suivi de la relation de la fête célébrée à Dom-Remi en 1820", and "Mémoires sur la maison de Jacques d'Arc et sur sa descendance", Nancy, Grimblot et veuve Raybois, 1850, engraving reproduced as by Claude Deruet. p.294.
Attributed to Deruet. Joan of Arc. Canvas preserved in the family of Joan of Arc.
RARE AND UNIQUE PORTRAIT OF JEANNE D'ARC PRESERVED IN HER FAMILY
This portrait with loose hair, hat, feather and sword on the shoulder is one of the earliest known. It is contemporary with the reverse engraving by Zacharie Heintz (1611-1669) entitled Puella Aureliaca (Paris, Musée Carnavalet, no. G.25201). This iconography was part of the Johannine revival initiated at the court of Henri IV by his adviser Charles du Lys (1559-1632), who published a "Recueil d'inscriptions et poésies en l'honneur de la Pucelle d'Orléans" in 1628.
The image of Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was in fact unknown, and everyone appropriated it. The only portrait drawn of her during her lifetime was by a clerk in the margin of a register of the Council of the Parliament of Paris on 10 May 1429, who heard of her exploits - but never saw her. Preserved in the National Archives, this drawing depicts the saint in dress and long hair (X/1a/1481 [AE/II/447], fol. 12r).
"O Jeanne sans sépulcre, et sans portrait, toi qui savais que le tombeau des héros est le cœur des vivants... Jeanne sans portrait..." proclaimed André Malraux in Orléans on 8 May 1961.
The question of Joan of Arc's genealogy is just as complex as that of her representation. The d'Arc, or du Lys, family, originally from Lorraine, was ennobled in 1429 by Charles VII, who gave it the coat of arms shown in this painting: "Azure, a sword Argent hilted Or set in pale and fenced in a Royal Crown Or, between two fleurs-de-lys also Or". The d'Arc family died out in 1493, but some families still claimed female lineage. This is the case of Jeanne Talbert d'Arc, wife of the writer Georges Bernanos, but above all of the Haldat du Lys.
Daughter of Pierre d'Arc, Jeanne's brother, Catherine d'Arc du Lys (1455-1545) married Georges de Haldat (1455-1544). It was her distant relative, the doctor and physicist Charles de Haldat (1760-1852), who in 1816 added "du Lys" to his surname - the other name in the d'Arc family - to establish his ancestry. It was then that the Haldat du Lys also took the coat of arms of the d'Arc family.
"We are all descended from a king and a hanged man," Jean de La Bruyère quipped in his Characters in 1688.
This rare portrait, published as early as 1850, therefore combines two rare qualities that are enhanced by family tradition:
- On the one hand, it has been preserved from the outset by a family claiming descent through the wives of Jeanne's brother, himself ennobled by the King and made a knight of the porcupine by Charles of Orléans.
- It is also probably modelled on an ancestor who shares a common genetic make-up with Joan of Arc, making it one of the most faithful likenesses of La Pucelle d'Orléans.
Philippe Rouillac
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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