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| Painted by Winterhalter in 1857. |
Claire-Émilie, marquise de Las Marismas, vicomtesse Aguado, née MacDonell. (October 24, 1817, Algiers - April 23, 1905, Paris).
When I first started composing this post, I could find nothing on this lovely woman other than her name and the dates of her birth and
death. And then, depending on where I
read it, even the date of her death and the spelling of her maiden name varied. As I struggled on, I began getting bits and pieces, mostly from French and Spanish sources, and much of it contradictory; I was made to resort to photographs of tomb inscriptions. What started as a desire to have a little something with which to footnote two lovely paintings became a minor, but far too time-consuming, detective case.
Apparently, the future marquise de Las Marismas was born October 24, 1817 at Algiers, the eldest daughter of Hugh MacDonell, who was British consul-general there, and his second wife, daughter of Admiral Ulrich, the Danish consul-general. She married, ca. 1842, Alexandre (Manuel-Alexandre? Jean-Manuel? Alexandre-Jean-Manuel?) (August 6, 1813 - August 16, 1861, Paris), the eldest son of the wealthy Franco-Spanish Aguado family. The couple had four children, the first son dying in childhood. At some point her husband "lost his reason", as they used to say, and she tended to him until his early death. Two years later, in 1863, by "special dispensation", she married his younger brother Onésipe-Gonsalve-Jean-Alexandre-Olympe, vicomte Aguado (August 9, 1830, Seine et Oise - May 19, 1893, Paris). She died April 23, 1885 - or 1905 - or 1908, depending on who you believe; the inscription on her tomb would seem to say 1885 - having outlived a husband, daughter, and two sons. (Or two husbands, a daughter, and all her sons, if either of the later dates is correct.)
(Update:
Thanks to the excellent research done at the Père Lachaise cemetery by commenter "Veuillet
Rebecca" - see below - we are now certain that the marquise actually
died in 1905 at the age of eighty-seven. A good age, but how sad that she had to endure the deaths of all of her children first....)
What
is certain is that she was a
dame du palais to the Empress Eugénie - it seems the Aguado family were old friends of
the empress' family, and likewise a supporter of the first Napoleon - and she was included in Winterhalter's famous 1855 portrait of the empress surrounded by her ladies.
While I have known of that vast canvas since childhood, the two oval
portraits of the marquise, also by Winterhalter, are fairly recent
acquaintances of mine. She seems, especially in the one where she is in
white, the quintessence of the soft, pale mid-nineteenth-century
beauty, with her "English curls" and her dreamy eyes.
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This portrait is exhibited at the chateau de Compiègne in the same
room as the group portrait of the Empress and her ladies. |
+-+1852+Versailles+smaller.png) |
| Painted by Winterhalter in 1852 - I love the little loose strand of hair on the right. |
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| The marquise is shown, seated, on the right of the group portrait of 1855. |
***
In 1860, the marquise's daughter, Carmen-Ida-Marie Aguado y MacDonell, born in 1847, was also painted by Winterhalter. In 1866 she married Adalbert de Talleyrand-Perigord (1837-1915), and became duchesse de Montmorency. She died in 1880 at the age of 33.
