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ROBERT LEFÈVRE (Bayeux, 1755-Paris, 1830)
Portrait of Iphigé…
See original version (French)
46
-
ROBERT LEFÈVRE (Bayeux, 1755-Paris, 1830)
Portrait of Iphigé…
See original version (French)
Estimate €40,000 - €60,000
Voluntary lot
Description
ROBERT LEFÈVRE (Bayeux, 1755-Paris, 1830)
Portrait of Iphigénie d'Estouff Milet de Mureau (1778-1862), wife Decaux
Canvas
Signed and dated lower left "Robert Lefèvre. 1808"
Old restorations
Canvas, signed and dated, with restorations
193 x 135 CM - 76 x 53,1 IN.
EXHIBITION
Salon de 1808, n° 519 ("Portrait en pied d'une dame tenant un porte-crayon et un carton à dessin") ;
French neo-classicism, New York, Wildenstein, April-May 1976, no. 10.
69, rue Sainte-Anne - 75002 Paris - Tel: 01 47 03 48 78 - [email protected] - www.turquin.fr
Turquin et Associés au capital de 50 000 euros - RCS Paris B 930 083 993 - Code APE 7490B - Siret 930 083 993 00012 - TVA : FR 43 930 083 993
PROVENANCE
Anonymous sale, Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 6 December 1866, no. 45 ;
British Rail Fund collection;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 6 June 1993, no. 7 ;
Anonymous sale, London, Sotheby's, 2 April 1998, no. 23.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
G. Wildenstein, "Tableau alphabétique des portraits peints, sculptés et gravés exposés à Paris au Salon entre 1800 et 1826", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, LXI, January 1963, reproche. fig. 5 p. 18.
Born in Bayeux in 1756, Robert Lefèvre trained in Paris from 1784 with Jean-Baptiste Regnault (1754-1829). From 1791, he exhibited at the Salon, mainly showing historical subjects, before devoting himself to genre portraits, for which he acquired a certain reputation. In 1801, for example, he painted General Bonaparte and his chief of staff Berthier at the Battle of Marengo, and in 1803 the Portrait of the First Consul for the town of Dunkerque, commissioned by Vivant Denon (1747-1825). This reputation as painter to the imperial family enabled Robert Lefèvre to work with prestigious clients.
The 1780s saw the development and recognition of women's artistic practice, as illustrated by the admission to the Académie of Élisabeth Vigée Le Brun (1755-1842) and Adélaïde Labille-Guiard (1749-1803) in 1783, and their success at the Salon of 1785. At the end of the decade, the Revolution forced female artists from the nobility to become professional in order to survive.
It was against this backdrop that Jean-Baptiste Regnault opened a studio for young girls in the Great Gallery of the Louvre in 1787, supervised by his wife Sophie Mayer (1763-1825). Robert Lefèvre trained in this milieu, which was becoming increasingly feminised, and this had a profound effect on his practice: he painted many portraits of his fellow painters, of which our painting is an example.
Depicting a young woman dressed in the fashion of the First Empire, our work was presented at the Salon of 1808 under the title "Portrait en pied d'une Dame qui tient à la main un porte-crayon et un cahier de dessin", and was hailed by the critics in the Mercure de France.
Robert Lefèvre chose to place his model in a natural landscape, surrounded by vegetation and accompanied by attributes that hinted at his status as a painter. This portrait served as a ceremonial portrait, while at the same time affirming the sitter's status as an artist.
A payment received by Robert Lefèvre from Iphigénie Decaux (née Claire Françoise Iphigénie d'Estouff Milet de Mureau) seems to indicate that it was she who was represented in her capacity as a still life painter.
Born on 17 June 1778 in Toulon into a noble family originally from Lorraine, she studied painting with the Flemish still-life painter Jan Frans Van Dael (1764-1840). Exhibited at the Salon between 1798 and 1812, she was a great success, particularly with Empress Josephine, who owned one of her works.
The painting's imposing size shows its importance in First Empire society: in 1800, born Claire Françoise Iphigénie d'Estouff Milet de Mureau married Louis-Victor Decaux, vicomte de Blacquetot (1775-1845), a major general during the French Revolution and the First Empire, as well as a French politician.
See original version (French)
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