Charmingly sat - Madame Marthe Letellier Sitting on a Sofa, Holding a Fan, by Paul-César Helleu, circa 1895

 

This elegant portrait is in pastel on canvas, 50.5 by 48.5 inches, and is part of the permanent collection of the Minneapolis Institute of Art..

I love the background Helleu has given this portrait. Such subtle, muted coloration, but then rendered in rather wild layers of pastel strokes.

Maybe my favorite detail is the squiggle and dots describing the piping and buttons of her upturned glove opening.

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Here are other of Helleu's portraits of madame Letellier, circa 1900-05.

Portrait de Marthe Letellier au chapeau.

Marthe Letellier née Fourton (1878-1954) was one of the artist's favorite models, and apparently very much aware of her own assets. 

The artist's daughter Paulette later related that one of her father's images of madame Letellier, her bust exposed - I'm assuming the same as that above - was, without his knowledge, reproduced in a newspaper and bearing only the title, "Portrait of Madame X .... ” In response, madame Letellier, reproached the artist, but her reason for complaint was quite contrary to what he'd expected; she explained to him that, "When the subject is so beautiful, one indicates the name!"

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.

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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.

Sans personne présent - five otherwise unrelated paintings

 Nature morte, fleurs dans une cruche en céramique, by Aimé Victor Barraud, 1939.

Stilleben, by Thorolf Holmboe, 1907.

Bodegón con piña, by Hermenegildo Bustos, 1877.

Chez Helleu [the artist Paul-César Helleu}, by Walter Gay, 1902.

Rum Row, by Frederic Judd Waugh, 1922.

Randomly V

(It's been two months and five days since I've had time to scrape together a blog post. We're all moved into the new house, but we're far from set up yet; so much more to do. So I thought I'd make it easy on myself and start off with a simple-to-assemble "randomly" post. It's good to be back.)

Margherita Gonzaga, Duchess of Lorraine, by Frans Pourbus the Younger, 1606.

Unknown subject, photographer unknown, ND.

Moonrise, by Stanisław Masłowski, 1884.

Marie-Hélène Arnaud and Joanna McCormick in Lanvin, photograph by Henry Clarke, 1957.

Unknown subject, unknown miniaturist, circa 1770s.

Arturo López-Willshaw, by Alexandre Jacovleff, 1923.

Unknown model,  photograph by Studio Arax, ND.

Mademoiselle Vaughan, by Paul César Helleu, 1905 (?).

Family portrait (On the Balcony), by Fyodor Slavyansky, 1851.

L'Amour et l'Hymen buvant dans la coupe de l'Amitié (Cupid and Hymen Drink from the Cup of Friendship),
by Jean-Baptiste Regnault, 1820.

Madame Spranza, Mathew Brady Studio, New York City, circa 1855-60.

Unknown subject, Josiah Johnson Hawes and Albert Sands Southworth, circa 1850.

Ted Shawn and His Men Dancers, 1934. (Film still?)

Anna Pavlova, circa 1911-12.

Portrait of a Monk of the Benedictine Order Holding a Skull, by Sir Anthony van Dyck, ND.

Portrait d'homme, by Maurice Quentin de La Tour, circa 1760.

New Moon, by Isaac Brodsky, 1912.

"French pet store", photographer unknown, circa 1925.

Antoinette-Pauline de Montet-Duchambge, by Robert Lefèvre, circa 1810.

Jimmy Martin, photograph by Kris Studios, ND.

Cordelia, by Sir Walter Westley Russell, 1930.