All the elegant ladies - selected portraits by François Flameng

 

 Princess Nicholas of Greece and Denmark, née Grand Duchess Elena Vladimirovna, 1905.

Madame Menier, née Hélène Thyra Seillière,1907.

Marie-Louise Heine-Fould, madame Fould, née Heine, 1903.

The princesse de Wagram, née Berthe-Clara von Rothschild, with her daughters Marguerite and Elisabeth, 1903.

 Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna - Grand Duchess Vladimir - née Duchess Marie of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, 1898.

 Elsie, Lady Duveen, née Salamon, 1910.

"Autumn Beauty", 1901.

 Grand Duchess Elizaveta Feodorovna - Grand Duchess Serge - née Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine, 1894. The setting is her country estate, Ilinskoe.

Mrs. William K. Vanderbilt, née Anne Harriman, 1909.

Princess "Dolly" Kotchoubey, née Daria Evgenievna de Beauharnais, Countess de Beauharnais, 1896.

Unknown English lady, 1906. (This painting has suffered a bit....)

Madame Charles de Marenches, née Margaret Clark Lestrade, 1912.

Mrs. Ogden Mills, née Ruth T. Livingston, 1909.

Unknown lady, 1917.

Portrait of madame D., 1911.

Mrs. Adeline M. Noble, née Ferris, 1903.

Unknown Lady, 1893.

 Princess Zinaida Nikolaievna Yusupova, 1894.

Empress Maria Feodorovna, née Princess Dagmer of Denmark, 1894. The setting is the White Hall of Gatchina Palace.

Queen Alexandra of the United Kingdom, Empress of India, née Princess of Denmark, 1908.

Cécile Sorel, circa 1902.

 Princess Obolenskaya, née Countess Hélène Andreievna Bobrinskaya, 1906.

Princess Zinaida Yusupova with her sons Nikolai and - the infamous - Felix, 1894. The setting is her country estate, Arkhangelskoe.

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François Flameng (6 December 1856, Paris - 28 February 1923, Paris), French painter most known for his history paintings and portraiture. He first trained with his father, Leopold, a celebrated engraver and illustrator, before studying with Alexandre Cabanal and Jean-Paul Laurens at the École des Beaux Arts. He went on to much success, especially as a portraitist; he was good friends with John Singer Sargent, one of his contemporary competitors. He also supplied work for such important civic buildings as the Sorbonne and the Opera Comique, and was awarded many honors, including the Légion d'honneur and the Royal Victorian Order. He all but reinvented himself as an artist during World War I, when was named honorary president of the Society of Military Painters and an accredited documentarian for the War Ministry. Ironically, for someone who had previously been best known for decorative scenes of historical pageantry and frothy portraits of glamorous ladies, the resulting work was seen by many critics as being too realistic, too much truth and insufficient heroism.