Antoinette-Cécile-Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot

'Madame Haudebourt painted by herself… Truly, is this a painting by a woman? What firmness of tones and in the brush! This is a woman with real talent who again this year seems to have made some progress.'¹

^These are the words expressed by Augustin Jal in his review of Antoinette Cécile Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot’s contribution to the Paris Salon of 1827.

She was the the pupil of Guillaume Guillon-Lethière (1760–1832), director of the Académie de France in Rome, a celebrated history painter and close family relation. Thanks to his influence she was able to travel to Italy to study art, where she remained for eight years. This journey, which was highly valued at the time and mainly reserved for the most distinguished male artists, proved fundamental in developing Haudebourt-Lescot’s painterly style and supplying her with themes that would inspire her until the end of her career.

Haudebourt-Lescot was a highly prolific artist and exhibited over 100 paintings in the prestigious Paris Salons from 1810 to 1840. During her career she achieved a level of recognition rarely afforded to women artists, becoming the painter to the Duchesse de Berry and receiving numerous commissions from the French government. Moreover, she was the only female artist to appear in François Joseph Heim’s monumental canvas of Charles X Distributing Awards to Artists Exhibiting at the Salon of 1824 at the Louvre January 15th 1825.²

This intimate self-portrait is one of only three recorded by the artist. The first, dated 1825, is in the collection of the Louvre, Paris;³ and the second was sold at auction in 2012.⁴ In both of these works, Haudebourt-Lescot depicts herself as an accomplished artist, holding a brush or a palette. In comparison, this work appears earlier in date and more informal. Here, she represents herself as a fashionable young woman, wearing a flowered shawl and straw hat. On the basis of the resemblance to a drawing executed by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1780–1867) in Rome in 1814 (Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco), in which she is depicted in similar attire, this self-portrait might have been painted in the early decades of the 19^th century during her travels in Italy.⁵

^

¹ A. Jal, Esquisses, croquis, pochades ou tout ce qu’on voudra sur le Salon de 1827, Paris 1828, p. 290.

² Inv. no. 5313; C 245; oil on canvas; 173 x 209 cm.; https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010065951

³ Inv. no. MI 719; oil on canvas; 74 x 60 cm.; https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010066844 

⁴ Oil on canvas; 35 x 26.7 cm.; in 'Mobilier du Château de Digoine', Paris, Beaussant-Lefevre, 23 March 2012, lot 250, for 65,000 euros; https://www.beaussantlefevre.com/lot/12648/2315809

⁵ Inv. no. 1954.73; graphite on light gray antique laid paper; 312 x 241 mm.; https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/Portrait_of_Hortense_Haudebourt-Lescot_-_after_Ingres_-_FAMSA_1954.73.jpg