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Claude Marie DUBUFE (Paris, 1790 – La Celle-Saint-Cloud, 186…
See original version (French)
241
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Claude Marie DUBUFE (Paris, 1790 – La Celle-Saint-Cloud, 186…
See original version (French)
Estimate €30,000 - €50,000
Voluntary lot
Description
Claude Marie DUBUFE (Paris, 1790 – La Celle-Saint-Cloud, 1864)
Portrait of Adrien Dauzats wearing a turban
Canvas (enlarged by 6 cm at the top at the time)
Height: 87 cm – Width: 65 cm
Signed and inscribed on the right: ‘Dubuffe / to his friend / Dauzats’.
Previous restorations
Bibliography: exhibition catalogue, Claude-Marie, Edouard and Guillaume Dubufe, Portraits of a Century
of Parisian Elegance (by Emmanuel Bréon), Délégation à l’Action Artistique de la Ville de Paris, 1988, p. 70
(mention of the date 1831).
G. Plessier, *Adrien Dauzats or The Temptation of the Orient: A Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings*, Bordeaux, Musée
des Beaux-Arts, 1990, p. 91.
Related work: Portrait of Adrien Dauzats (1808–1868), lithograph by Louis Delteil in the journal *L’Artiste*,
vol. XI, April 1896.
The rediscovery of this portrait, emblematic of Romanticism and Orientalism, is also a story of friendship.
69, rue Sainte-Anne - 75002 Paris - Tel: 01 47 03 48 78 - [email protected] - www.turquin.fr
Turquin et Associés, with a share capital of 50,000 euros - RCS Paris B 930 083 993 - APE code 7490B - SIRET 930 083 993 00012 - VAT: FR 43 930 083 993
As early as 1826, Claude Marie Dubuffe opened a studio on the former Rue d’Orléans and, together with Adrien Dauzats and
Baron Taylor, founded a mutual aid society for artists. They remained close friends until their deaths. Adrien Dauzats was
introduced to Baron Taylor in 1824; three years later, the Baron included him among the group of draughtsmen contributing to his work
*Les Voyages pittoresques et romantiques dans l’ancienne France*. After an initial journey to
Franche-Comté, and a second to Auvergne, Baron Taylor was appointed the King’s commissioner to the Pasha
of Egypt, Mehmet Ali, with the aim of acquiring works of art and antiquities for the Louvre’s collections, and
succeeded in securing the transfer of the Luxor Obelisk, which was erected in 1836 on the Place de la Concorde. It was
probably because Dauzats was accompanying the writer on this journey to the East that Dubuffe, in 1831, depicted his friend in Ottoman dress.
The artist was then at the height of his fame; both his portraits and his genre scenes were a great success at several
salons. Critics at the time regarded him as standing at the crossroads between the Davidian tradition—which he carried forward—and
Romanticism. Several of his portraits of women from the 1830s feature large oriental turbans, which were then
in vogue during the Restoration. Also worth noting, in this exotic vein, is the famous portrait of Hassan, keeper
of the giraffe—an animal that Mehmed Ali had presented to Charles X—which has been housed in the Louvre since 2017.
The pronounced taste for Hellenism that had developed during the Greek War of Independence at the start of the century
began to wane in the 1830s. Artists now turned their attention to more distant destinations, such
as Constantinople or Cairo.
By depicting Adrien Dauzats wearing an oversized Turkish turban, Claude Marie Dubuffe was in keeping with this
fascination with the Near East, which was in vogue in the 1830s. Nevertheless, he reinvented the tradition of the
portraiture—a tradition which, from Rembrandt and Rigaud, through the 18th-century French painters Jean-Honoré
Fragonard and Jean-Baptiste Leprince, had continued with Baron Gros, Girodet and Géricault right up to
Delacroix. By choosing to dress his friend in this sumptuous costume, the painter produces a portrait that is a far cry from the
conventions of the genre. The turban, brought to life by a spectacular interplay of curves and enhanced by vibrant colours,
illuminates the whole, playing on a vivid vermilion red, a purple, and shades of orange and saffron, thereby bringing
great dynamism to the composition, in which the numerous tassels cascading down over the
subject’s shoulders contrast with the parallel patterns on his kaftan.
See original version (French)
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About the sale
Exclusive sale. Paintings, furniture and works of art
Auction location
Auction time
10/21/2026 at 9:30 AM
Ref. : 9124 - 1
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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