1 / 3
Premium Leducq Maison de Ventes aux enchères
3
-
Romantic School, from the circle of Eugène Delacroix.
See original version (French)
3
-
Romantic School, from the circle of Eugène Delacroix.
See original version (French)
Estimate €2,000 - €3,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Romantic School, from the circle of Eugène Delacroix. Portrait of Alexandre Dumas [1827?].
The first portrait of Alexandre Dumas?
Oil on canvas
60.2 x 50 cm.
Illegible signature.
Framed.
Re-stretching and restoration.
Long handwritten note on the back of the frame: ‘This portrait of Alexandre Dumas is the companion piece to that of the “young girl in a cemetery” from the Moreau Nélaton collection (catalogue no. 52) (same dimensions 65 x 54, same period 1825–1830, same meticulous style of drawing and painting. The portrait of A. Dumas is more powerful in terms of colour and light; the eyes, mouth, the lips are rendered in a similar manner; and the silver-white of the collar and front panel in A. Dumas’s painting is the same as that of the young girl’s blouse in both paintings, as are the line, the colour and the great dramatic impact. Very faintly visible in the bottom left-hand corner, one can still make out the signature of Eug. Delacroix. I bought it for 150 francs in 1900 from a second-hand dealer on Avenue Trudaine. I had it re-stretched; I have kept the note stuck to the canvas: ‘Portrait of Alexandre Dumas de La Pailleterie, 1827’. This portrait was given to me, signed ‘Leuven’. It featured in the Exhibition of Portraits of Famous Men and Women held at Bagatelle in 1908 by the Société Nationale des Beaux-
Arts, catalogue no. 62.
Victor Perrot.”
(Leuven is almost certainly Adolphe Ribbing de Leuven (1802–1884), a childhood friend – they met in 1819 – and collaborator of Alexandre Dumas. In 1851, he acquired the Champflour estate in Marly-le-Roi, where he hosted Dumas the Younger and his family every summer, before bequeathing it to him). The appealing attribution to Delacroix has since been disputed, but the portrait can be attributed to a painter from his circle, although no specific name can be put forward.
If, on the other hand, the date of 1827 is indeed when the portrait was painted – which is likely given the model’s youth – its liveliness, even its fervour, are similar to those found in the portrait of Dumas painted by J. B. Guichard in 1828; then this is the first
known portrait of Dumas.
See original version (French)
Auto-translation. Refer to original language for legal validity.
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
You may also like