From oil to clay - terracotta portrait of Juliette Récamier after David, attributed to Clémence Sophie de Sermezy, circa 1825-35

Juliette Récamier (1777-1849), what we might now refer to as a "professional beauty", was avid in her pursuit of being portrayed by the best known artists of her time. Painted by François Gérard, Antoine-Jean Gros, the miniaturist Jean-Baptiste Augustin and, most famously, by Jacques-Louis David, she was also the subject of sculptors, such as the great Canova. And a sculptor from Lyon, Joseph Chinard (1756-1813), produced several busts and portrait medallions for madame Récamier. The present work - an interpretation of David's abandoned/unfinished portrait of the lady - has, for stylistic reasons, long been considered to be a product of the "school of Chinard" rather than that of the artist himself. Recent scholarship now points to one of his students, Clémence Sophie de Sermezy.

David's celebrated portrait of the twenty-three year old Juliette Récamier, begun in May of 1800.

De Sermézy (née Daudignac; 1767, Lyon -1850, Charentay) belonged to a well-to-do family in Lyon. We know little about her early life, except that she married Marc Antoine Noyel de Béreins, comte de Sermezy, in 1789 and, in the following decade, became a pupil of Chinard. She quickly gained some local fame as a sculptor and, in 1818, became an associate member of the Académie de Lyon. She also hosted a salon which became an artistic and cultural center for the city of Lyon and which was frequented by illustrious personalities of the time, both local artists and politicians and visiting celebrities.

This photograph looks to have been taken before the piece was cleaned and restored. 

Both hands were broken, and the roses in her right hand - a later addition? - do not remain in the restored statuette.

Detail of David's portrait.

This terracotta piece - roughly a foot long and high - is very much in line stylistically with the artist's work from this period. David's portrait of madame Récamier was begun in 1800 but, after a dispute between the artist and model, it languished in his studio, unseen by the general public until it was acquired by the Louvre in 1826. The date of its appearance there puts it squarely in the timeline now attributed to the statuette's creation.

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Bust of madame Récamier by de Sermezy's teacher, Joseph Chinard, circa, 1801-02.