Jules Boilly (1796-1874) - Portrait of a Young Woman

Jules BOILLY
(Paris 1796 - 1874)
Portrait of a young woman
Oil on canvas
H. 110 cm ; W. 89 cm unframed
Signed lower right, dated 1831

Provenance: Private collection in Eastern France

Reading Boilly's name automatically brings to mind the thousands of small portraits painted by Louis Léopold, the father, which are commonly found in groups, neatly arranged on walls and harmoniously framed in a similar style. Jules Boilly, the son, also painted portraits, following in his father's footsteps. He opted for his own formats in response to commissions, but stuck to compositions of no more than seventy centimetres. The majority of his drawings are in graphite and chalk, easily reproducible as engravings.

Our portrait, of a more than generous format, is a recent rediscovery that completes the corpus of Jules Boilly's most productive years, at the age of thirty-five. This graceful work presents a young girl in an interior, dressed and coiffed in the pure fashion of Charles X, holding in her hand a small gold-framed fan. The rendering of the material of the gloves and the transparency of the veil covering the arms is remarkable.