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portrait of a lady in a blue dress with a black dogportrait of a lady with a dog in a blue dressan old wooden window with a glass pane and a note attached to ita painting of a man in a suit and tiea sculpture of a man standing in a room with a painting on the wall
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67 - François-Hubert DROUAIS (Paris, 1727 – 1775) Portrait of a w…
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Estimate €30,000 - €50,000
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Description
François-Hubert DROUAIS (Paris, 1727 – 1775) Portrait of a woman with a black dog, known as Madame de Tencin Oil on canvas Signed and dated ‘Drouais le fils. / 1756’ on the left Portrait of a woman with a black dog, known as Madame de Tencin, oil on canvas, signed and dated, by F.-H. Drouais 24.01 x 19.68 in. 61 x 50 cm Provenance: Collection of Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812–1870) and Charlotte de Rothschild (1825–1899); Passed to his grandson by inheritance; Collection of Henri de Rothschild (1872–1947); Then passed down through the family; Private European collection Exhibitions: Exhibition of four 18th-century portrait painters, Paris, January–February 1930, no. 35, ill. pl. XI Bibliography: Cyrille Gabillot, “Les trois Drouais”, *Gazette des Beaux-Arts*, Paris, 1906, ill. p. 249 Charles Morice, “La collection Henri de Rothschild”, *L’Art et les artistes*, Paris, 1906, p. 232, ill. p. 226 Pauline Prevost-Marcilhacy, *Les Rothschild, une dynastie de mécènes en France*, vol. 1, Paris, 2016, p. 191 Related work: François-Hubert Drouais, Portrait of Captain Robert Poitou, Marquis de Tencin, oil on canvas, signed and dated ‘Drouais le fils, 1756’, 61 x 50 cm, location unknown (fig. 1) A member of a dynasty of portrait painters, François-Hubert Drouais, known as Drouais the Younger, was one of the most highly regarded practitioners of the genre during the reign of Louis XV. After receiving his first lessons from his father and then training under the most eminent painters of his time, Drouais was elected a member of the Académie in 1758. He quickly achieved great success at Versailles and became, in particular, the portraitist to the royal family and to Madame de Pompadour, for whom he painted the famous portrait of her at her embroidery frame, now in the National Gallery in London. The artist distinguished himself by producing flattering court portraits, executed in a refined and elegant style, paying particular attention to the texture of materials and the milky tones of the skin. Drouais also revitalised this genre through his charming sense of composition. Members of the high aristocracy were thus depicted in their sumptuous interiors, busy writing letters, sewing, or stroking their dogs, as in our painting. The subject, depicted in a three-quarter-length portrait, wears a square-necked silk dress embroidered with floral motifs. Wide moiré blue ribbons, echoing the colour of her eyes, adorn her outfit, her choker and the lace in her powdered hair. The fine, elegant features of her face are accentuated by the pink of her lips and the blush on her cheeks. Finally, she holds a small black dog and a fur muff in her arms – recurring motifs in Drouais’s portraits of women. Painted two years before the artist’s admission to the Royal Academy, this presumed portrait of Gabrielle de Chemery et Coucy, Marquise de Tencin, was held, together with its companion piece – the Portrait of Captain Robert de Poitou, Marquis de Tencin (fig. 1) – in the collections of Charlotte de Rothschild, the daughter of Baron James, the founder of the Parisian branch of the family. On her death in 1899, her grandson, Baron Henri de Rothschild, inherited, amongst other things, her prestigious collection of 18th-century French paintings, including the two portraits – which were subsequently separated – which he displayed in the ground-floor rooms of his townhouse at 33 Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Honoré, which had been converted into a veritable museum in honour of his grandmother’s impeccable taste. François-Hubert DROUAIS (Paris, 1727 – 1775) 61 x 50 cm
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About the sale The Rothschild taste, passed down through the generations: A pied-à-terre on the Champ-de-Mars
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Auction time 09/22/2026 at 2:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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