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MARIE ÉLÉONORE GODEFROID (PARIS, 1778-1849)
PORTRAIT OF THE …
See original version (French)
48
-
MARIE ÉLÉONORE GODEFROID (PARIS, 1778-1849)
PORTRAIT OF THE …
See original version (French)
Estimate €15,000 - €20,000
Voluntary lot
Description
MARIE ÉLÉONORE GODEFROID (PARIS, 1778-1849)
PORTRAIT OF THE SISTERS LOUISE CHRISTINE AND LOUISE ÉMILIE DE LAFONTAINE
Original canvas (Haro)
Restoration period wood and gilded stucco frame with palmettes
Inscriptions on the stretcher and old label
Label on the left of the frame: "Portraits peints par M. ell Gadeprin élève préférée de Gerard ayant travaillé avec lui à tous ses tableaux du Louvre et autres qui ont fait sa célébrité" / "Exposé sous le n. 595 Salon des 1822".
Inscriptions on the stretcher: "Exhibited in 1833" / "1821" / "Painted by M. elle Godefroy Pupil ? the fountain, daughter of a former pupil of DAVID".
Label on stretcher: "Dame au corsage rouge. Louise Christine Émilie Léonide Delafointaine born in Paris in 1803 died in S. Mandé on 25 January 1885 at the age of 82 years, married to Constant Fenelon Tellier, Chief of the offices of the town hall of the 9th district born in Paris in 1790 died in Neully on 9 March at the age of 80 years. Mother of Ernest Tellier. grandmother of the Bardoux families. great-grandmother of the Denouvel and Varenne Caillard families" / "Dame au corsage blanc. Louise Émilie Delafointaine born in Paris in 1865 died in Paris at the age of 95 married... Blondel history painter... the institute died in Paris on... the age of 71... painted pla... paintings at Notre Dame de Lorette... All descendants can... and be honoured with the title of... and Bourgeois de Paris".
Old restorations
Portrait of sisters de Lafontaine, original canvas, with restorations
51 x 61 CM - 20 x 24 IN.
PROVENANCE
Always remained in the family by descent.
EXHIBITION
Salon of 1822, n° 595 ("Portrait of two young people in the same painting").
Daughter of the painter and restorer to the king François-Ferdinand-Joseph Godefroid de Veaux, Marie-Eléonore had the privilege of spending her childhood in the Louvre palace. When she was just seventeen, she joined Mme Campan's boarding school in Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1795 as an art teacher, thanks to her talents as a draughtswoman and musician. Eleven years later, when the school was transferred to Ecouen, she decided to return to Paris and make a career of it. She studied with two of David's pupils: Jean-Baptiste Isabey and François Gérard. She became a friend of Gérard, working alongside him from 1805 and moving into his home in 1812. Their collaboration was so close that she not only adopted his aesthetic, but also ran the studio, going so far as to sign certain works in his name during his absences. She made copies of Gérard's portraits, such as Portrait de Germaine de Staël (Château de Versailles), based on her master's 1817 version. She also excelled at depicting children, as in Les fils du maréchal Ney (Berlin, Gemäldegalerie). She taught drawing to the children of the Duc d'Orléans, whom she portrayed on several occasions, notably in 1819, 1822 and 1827. When Baron Gérard died in 1837, she completed her commissions and continued to live with the painter's family. She exhibited at all the Salons from 1800 to 1847 and was awarded several medals.
Our painting represents the two daughters of the painter Pierre-Maximilien Delafontaine (1774-1860) and Émilie Claudine Herbillon. The latter, also a pupil of David, was forced to interrupt his short career as a painter to follow in the footsteps of his father, a bronze manufacturer. On the left, the eldest, Louise Christine de Lafontaine (1802-1883), had married Constant-Fénelon Le Tellier, a bookseller and man of letters, two years before our painting was made, in 1820. On the right, the youngest daughter, Louise Amélie (1805-1882), married the painter Merry-Joseph Blondel in 1839. He was awarded the Grand Prix de Rome in 1805 and received numerous commissions from major public institutions. Together, they travelled to Rome, where Ingres, then director of the École, welcomed them for the four months of their stay.
Both were dressed in Empire-style dresses with short puffed sleeves in organza, red for one and white for the other. Flowers adorn their hair. Their gentle gazes, their discreet smiles, the tender gesture of one hand delicately placed on the other's shoulder, their close, slightly tilted faces express the complicity between them, but also with the painter. The painter has chosen to frame the figures tightly, lending a soft, intimate atmosphere to the scene. Over and above this psychological finesse, the artist displays here a virtuoso technique in the modelling of the faces, the liveliness of the glances and the iridescent transparency of the vaporous stole. She warmed up her neoclassical heritage with a touch of nascent romanticism, intensified by the opening onto a melancholy sky. This airs the composition and adds a certain depth to this double portrait.
See original version (French)
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Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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