Lot n° 259
Estimation :
4000 - 6000
EUR
Result with fees
Result
: 8 630EUR
Juliette de Ribeiro, née Juliette Bourgeois de Garancière (1 - Lot 259
Juliette de Ribeiro, née Juliette Bourgeois de Garancière (1810 - 18..)
Portrait of Georges Sand in an amazon outfit
Oil on canvas 73 x 60 cm.
(re-coated, restorations) "You have rights without knowing it to my gratitude; in these intimate confidences of your life you have revealed to me what I had felt for a long time but which I did not know how to decipher in myself; your ingenious and sublime soul makes all the strings of our most hidden feelings vibrate."
It is in these terms that the author of our portrait addresses the author of Histoire de ma vie in a letter dated July 10, 1855 (1). This passionate letter from one woman to another, from one artist to another, finds its exact counterpart in our painting.
In this seductive and empanelled figure, with its slightly idealised and rejuvenated features, with its elegant posture but without affectation, it is easy to read between the vigorous brushstrokes a heartfelt homage to the Great Lady of the 19th century.
This vibrant and lively testimony of admiration takes on a particular dimension in view of the destiny of these two women:
Juliette de Ribeiro began a brilliant career as an artist at the dawn of Romanticism. Her talent allowed her to exhibit regularly at the Salon, especially portraits, between 1827 and 1847. But political unrest and the loss or abandonment of a husband dashed her hopes and ambitions. His talent, however, allowed him to pursue a career for the State and the Ministry of the Interior, which entrusted him with the commission of numerous official copies. Painting is her profession, her livelihood, her guarantee of freedom and her means of survival, as she explains in a moving letter: "... having had the honour of working for the Ministry for many years and exhibiting widely at various times, I beg you to grant me a painting to copy. If you accept this favor, you will be helping an artist who has a large family to support and who finds herself without work as a result of the recent troubles."
As for Georges Sand, she still embodies the freedom and emancipation of women today; a freedom won through her work and demanded by her courage. For the Lady of Nohant, mistress successively and among others of Musset, Chopin and Mérimée, free in love, who smoked and willingly dressed in trousers, will defend all her life the equality of the sexes and of citizens. She thought, felt and expressed herself. Vilified or adulated, recognized by her peers as a great writer, she showed the way to all those who, like Juliette de Ribeiro, recognized themselves in her and saluted, each in their own way, this guide and artist.
letter preserved in the George Sand collection of the Bibliothèque historique de la ville de Paris, under the number G. 5755
Bibliography:
Chris Petteys, Dictionary of Women Artists, Boston: G.K. Hall, 1985, p. 595.
Julia Welbourn, Juliette de Ribeiro: A Woman Painter of the Second Empire
Paul Duro, The "Demoiselles à Copier" in the Second Empire, in Woman's Art Journal Vol. 7, No. 1 (Spring - Summer, 1986), pp. 1-7
Archives Nationales, F21 53 (1840s), F21 105 (1850s), F21 176 (1860s), F21 250 (1860s)
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