Offered by Galerie William Diximus
Antoinette-Cécile-Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot (Dec. 14, 1784 - Jan. 2, 1845)
Portrait of the son of the artist, Louis Philippe Léon Haudebourt (Dec. 1820 - after 1850).
Oil on canvas, signed Haudebourt Lesc(ot) and dated 1832
(lower right)
Exhibited:
Paris, Salon, 1833, n°1215 (Portraits, même numéro).
Literature:
“Exposition au Louvre,” Journal des artistes, March 31, 1833, vol. XIII, p. 224.
S. C., “Salon de 1833. Peinture,” L’Artiste, tome V, p. 194.
Augustin Jal, Les Causeries du Louvre. Salon de 1833, Paris, Charles Gosselin éditeur, 1833, p. 165.
Dimensions without frame: Height: 166cm Width: 125cm
Dimensions with frame: Height: 199cm Width: 158cm
Catalogue Note
Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot was a celebrated painter during the early decades of the Nineteenth Century and achieved a degree of recognition in her lifetime that was highly unusual for women artists. She was an accomplished dancer and painter. She trained with painter Guillaume
Guillon-Lethière and followed him after he was appointed director at the Académie de France in Rome, where women artists were excluded.
She exhibited to the Paris Salons from Rome. Back in Paris, she remained very active in the art world. Marie-Caroline de Bourbon-Siciles, Duchess of
Berry, an astute art collector, was one of her patrons during the Bourbon Restoration. Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot received many royal commissions under the July Monarchy. She was a friend of the greatest artists of the time. At the end of her career, opened her own studio to teach women
drawing, on the third floor of her private home at 9 rue La Bruyère.
Nowadays, her paintings continue to arouse the interest of international cultural institutions which acquire them, such as the musée Fabre in Montpellier (Le Meunier, son fils et l’âne, 1819), the Nationalmuseum in Stockholm (Portrait of a woman sketching in Plein-air, 1810s) and the Clark Art
Institute in Williamstown (The Wedding Trip, 1821). The present painting remains a very important piece in the career of Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot as she painted in 1832 the charming portrait of her loving son.
