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1 - 1 - Adolphe YVON (Eschviller, 1817 – Paris, 1893) Portrait of Ma…
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Estimate €4,000 - €6,000
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Description
Adolphe YVON (Eschviller, 1817 – Paris, 1893) Portrait of Madame Hermann-Joseph Reinach, née Julie Büding (1817–1893), 1863 Oil on oval canvas, signed and dated in the centre left. 65 x 54 cm In its original oval display frame. Frame: 84 x 73 cm. Provenance Reinach family collection. Formerly sold at Christie’s (according to a label preserved on the reverse). Exhibitions According to the label visible on the reverse: Tokyo, Exhibition of French Painters, 1977, no. 31, reproduced on p. 65 (under an erroneous identification of the sitter). Catalogue note Painted in 1863, this portrait depicts Julie Büding (1817–1893), wife of the banker Hermann-Joseph Reinach and mother of Joseph, Salomon and Théodore Reinach. Long mistakenly identified as a portrait of Madame Salomon Reinach, the subject’s identity has been established thanks to the family chronology: in 1863, Salomon Reinach was only five years old. It must therefore be his mother, who was forty-six at the time. A leading figure of the Second Empire, Adolphe Yvon was one of the most sought-after portraitists of his time. Highly regarded by Napoleon III and Empress Eugénie, he simultaneously pursued an international career that took him to England, the United States and Russia, amongst other places. Julie Reinach is depicted in profile, a style particularly favoured in European artistic circles at the time. The simplicity of the composition, the delicate modelling of the face and the elegance of the hairstyle, inspired by antiquity, lend the portrait a timeless quality. The refined treatment of the profile evokes both ancient cameos and the neoclassical ideal that characterised mid-19th-century art. The historical significance of this portrait also lies in the identity of its subject. His youngest son, Théodore Reinach (1860–1928), an archaeologist, historian and Hellenist, commissioned the Villa Kérylos in Beaulieu-sur-Mer, a remarkable reconstruction of an ancient Greek residence carried out between 1902 and 1908. Through its taste for antiquity and the serene nobility of its depiction, this portrait already seems to foreshadow the intellectual and aesthetic world in which the Reinach family would evolve at the turn of the 20th century. The reverse bears several old inscriptions and labels, including a label from Christie’s, as well as a photograph of the work. It also attests to the painting’s inclusion in the Exhibition of French Painters held in Tokyo in 1977.
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About the sale Luxury sales: Jewellery & Fine Jewellery, Watches & Luggage
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Auction time 07/11/2026 at 11:00 AM
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