Material Oil on canvas
Dimensions 40.5 × 32.5 cm
Place of Creation France
Price Available upon inquiry
Status Vetted

About the Work

The painting can be securely identified by an elegantly written note attached to the reverse of the stretcher by her son: ‘Mme Danloux de St Rédan. This portrait was painted by my father in 1790 at the château of Passy near Villeneuve-le-Roi (Yonne), in the room where I was born. Jules Danloux.’ Antoinette stands in a room whose walls are hung with a patterned silk fabric, with a gilt wood trumeau mirror over the rouge du Languedoc marble chimneypiece, in which one can see the young woman’s reflection. A screen hung with green silk is half-turned towards the fire glowing in the hearth and on the right of the composition one can see part of a Louis XV canapé deux places, covered in a pale blue silk damask. On the left of the chimneypiece, a Vincennes ewer (from 1754) containing a few wildflowers, stands next to a contemporary and highly fashionable sucrier of Jasper earthenware from the Wedgwood factory in Staffordshire.

Mme Danloux leans casually against the chimneypiece holding in her hand a small leather-bound book, the place marked by a red ribbon. Her pale complexion is framed by brown hair arranged in a full, fashionably unpowdered coiffure, typical of the 1780s–1790s; she seems to be absorbed in her thoughts. She wears a pale, blue silk skirt with a fitted brown bodice with long sleeves finished with lace cuffs, and a light-coloured shawl or fichu is draped in broad crossed-bands over her shoulders.

Our painting likely dates to a few months before what may be considered the artist’s masterpiece, The Portrait of Baron de Besenval in his Salon (formerly Stair Sainty Gallery), now in the collection of the National Gallery, London. This portrays Pierre-Joseph-Victor, baron de Besenval, described by one of his biographers as soldier, collector, bon viveur, raconteur and rake, and a well-known figure among the elite of contemporary French society, seated in his Salon in what is today the Swiss embassy in Paris.

There are notable similarities between the two compositions. Both figures are posed in profile, facing left, their arms resting on marble chimneypieces with a lightly glowing fire and ormolu chenets, surmounted by a trumeau mirror and precious objects. The baron is seated in an elegant bergère covered in a dark green silk, rather than standing, next to a wall hung with old master paintings from his collection, contrasting with the empty walls in the Danloux bedroom. Both paintings are on a similar scale, the baron’s canvas just slightly larger than our portrait of the artist’s wife.

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Provenance

The artist; to his only surviving son, Guillaume-Simon-Pierre Jules Danloux (1790-1869, married to Eugènie Pleyel, youngest daughter of the eminent musician Ignace Pleyel, composer and manufacturer of pianos); to the latter’s oldest surviving son, Colonel Joseph Arthur Danloux (1826-1892, who died without issue); to the latter’s brother Brigadier-General Alfred Danloux (1830-1912); to the latter’s only son Colonel Pierre Jules Danloux, Ecuyer en chef de l’École de cavalerie (1878-1965); Pierre Jean Marie Joseph Henry Danloux (1906-1992).

Literature

R. Portalis, Henri-Pierre Danloux, portrait painter and his journal during the emigration, Paris, E. Rahir, 1910, p. 211, reproduced on page 211, ‘Madame Danloux at the Château of Passy, Collection of General A. Danloux.’; Olivier Meslay, ‘La famille d’Etigny et le peintre Henri-Pierre Danloux,’ Bulletin de la Société archéologique du Gers, 2004/4, p.459-465, footnote 2; Humphrey Wine, The Eighteenth Century French Paintings, Henri-Pierre Danloux, Baron de Besenval, fig. 17, London: National Gallery Company and Yale University Press, 2018.

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