Jules-Elie Delaunay (1828-1891)
| Artist Name | Jules-Elie Delaunay (1828-1891) |
|---|---|
| Title | La Marquesa De Escombreras (1824-1905) |
| Description | This superb French Victorian portrait oil painting is by noted French society painter Jules-Elie Delaunay. Painted in 1883 it is a three-quarter length profile portrait of the Marquesa de Escombreras. Her full name was Trinidad Maria Piedad Fulgenico de Aguirre. She was born in 1824 in Cartagena, Spain, the seventh and last child of Jose de Aguirre, a retired naval officer. On October 22nd 1843 she married Frenchman Hilarion Roux (1819-1898) who was a banker from Marseille who settled in Cartegena in January 1843. After her marriage she was known as Trinidad Roux. Hilarion Roux had arrived in Cartagena first to trade silver. He quickly became one of the main lead industrialists in Catagena then in the Mediterranean area. The couple later lived in France again, in Marseille and later in Paris, where Trinidad died in 1905 aged 81. Interestingly there is no similar portrait of her husband. In this superb painting, the Marquesa, aged about 60 in reality, is wearing a black off the shoulder dress with a heavily ornate band of lace and ribbon around the top. She is wearing long and expensive fitted kid gloves that have a little slit to make them easier to put on and to also discreetly hide a hanky. She is also holding a fan. Behind her is a patterned curtain and corner of an ornate cupboard with carnations in a vase. The brushwork, impasto and detail are all superb. Portraits are always carefully curated, this one conveying the Marquesa's beauty but seriousness, her ornate dress displaying her nobility, status and wealth as wife to a very wealthy and successful Frenchman. There is a nod to Spain and that she is proud to be Spanish with the flowers and fan, the red carnations also symbolising martial fidelity. This beautiful French Victorian oil painting is an excellent example of Delaunay's work and perfectly demonstrates the Marquesa's status in her family and also society. Signed and dated in the middle. |
| Provenance | Un Vertige Mediterraneen - Hilarion Roux, Marquis D'Escombreras (1819-1898) by Gerad Chastagnaret, published 2023. Chapter XV p301-317 is entitled Portrait de Femme and is all about the Marquesa, Roux's wife. P. 310 fig 1. Portrait of Marquesa de Escombreras by Jules Elie Delaunay - owned by Richard Taylor Fine Art. French family descent. |
| Medium | Oil on Canvas |
| Size | 39 x 31 inches |
| Frame | Housed in a fine gilt gallery frame 50 inches by 42 inches. Excellent condition. |
| Condition | Excellent museum condition. |
| Biography | Jules Elie Delaunay. (June 13, 1828 – September 5, 1891) French painter, was born at Nantes and studied under Flandrin and at the École des Beaux Arts. He worked in the classicist manner of Ingres until, after winning the Prix de Rome, he went to Italy in 1856, and abandoned the ideal of Raphaelesque perfection for the sincerity and severity of the quattrocentists. As a pure and firm draughtsman he stands second only to Ingres. After his return from Rome he was entrusted with many important commissions for decorative paintings, such as the frescoes in the church of St Nicholas at Nantes; the three panels of Apollo, Orpheus and Amphion at the Paris opera-house; and twelve paintings or the great hall of the council of state in the Palais Royal. His Scenes from the Life of St Genevieve, which he designed for the Panthéon, remained unfinished at his death. The Luxembourg Museum has his famous Plague in Rome and a nude figure of Diana; and the Nantes Museum, the Lesson on the Flute. In the last decade of his life he achieved great popularity as a portrait painter. |
| Price | £30000 |
