The whisper of silk and velvet's hush - portraits of ladies by Carolus-Duran

 La Dame au gant - madame Carolus-Duran, née Pauline-Marie-Charlotte Croizette, 1869.

Marguerite Stern-Charles Durant, 1889.

La Dame au chien - madame Ernest Feydeau, 1870.

Emily Warren Roebling, 1896.

Maria Letizia Rattazzi, 1872.

Queen Maria Pia of Portugal, 1880.

Mrs. William Astor, née Caroline Webster Schermerhorn, 1890.

The Honourable Mrs. Ronald Greville, née Margaret Anderson, 1891.

Madame Georges Petit, 1879.

María Reyna de Fernández Blanco, 1899.

Madame Feydeau and her Children,1897. The artist's daughter Marianne was the wife of playwright Georges Feydeau.

Mademoiselle de Lancey, 1876.

Nadezhda Polovtsova, 1876.

Lucy Lee Robbins, 1884.

 Comtesse Roussy de Sales, née Rosalie "Lily" Rheims, 1888.

Eufrásia Teixeira Leite, 1887.

Jane Henriot, 1900.

Madame Gettling, 1905 (?).

Madame Lafourcade, née Cortira à la Havane, 1907.

Madame Henry Fouquier, 1876.

 Madame Marie Clerc, 1874.

Anna Obolenskaya, 1887.

Emily Vanderbilt Sloane Hammond, 1894.

The artist's wife, 1885.

*

Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (4 July 1837, Lille – 17 February 1917, Paris), French portrait painter and teacher. The son of a hotel owner, his first drawing lessons were with a local sculptor at the Académie de Lille. He then took up painting with François Souchon, who had been a student of Jacques Louis David. At the age of sixteen he moved to Paris, where he adopted the name "Carolus-Duran"; six years later he had his first exhibition at the Salon. From 1862 to 1866, on a scholarship awarded by his hometown, he traveled to Rome and Spain. Upon returning to France, he was awarded his first gold medal at the Salon. In 1869 he married Pauline Croizette, an artist in her own right, and together they would have three children. He was made a chevalier of the Légion d'honneur in 1872, promoted to Officier in 1878, Commandeur in 1889 and, finally, Grand Officier in 1900. In 1890, he was one of the co-founders of the second Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1904. The following year, he was appointed Director of the French Academy in Rome, a position he held until 1913. Celebrated in his lifetime, he is now better remembered as an influential teacher. Many of his pupils went on to successful careers, two of his best-known students being Paul Helleu and john Singer Sargent.

Portrait of a Woman in a Black Dress and Hat, date unknown.