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- 1. Félicie de Fauveau (1801-1885)
Portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux, 1840
Polychrome marble - 43.5 x 35 x 15 cm
Manchester (New Hampshire), The Currier Museum of Art
Photo: Stuart Lochhead Sculpture - See the image in its page
26/5/23 - Acquisition - Manchester (New Hampshire), The Currier Museum of Art - "This marble must say that it was made for the best and noblest servant of the Prince and that a Chouan made it": these words by Félicie de Fauveau about a bust of the Duke of Bordeaux wonderfully describe this singular royal effigy, a copy of which (ill. 1 to 3) has just joined the collections of the Currier Museum of Art [1]. Inaugurating the essay that Sylvain Bellenger devoted to the rare portraits produced by the sculptor in the catalogue of the rich retrospective organised in Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne (see article) and then at the Musée d’Orsay (see news item 12/6/13) in 2013, this quotation clearly affirms the political convictions of Félicie de Fauveau, a fierce legitimist who executed only around fifteen portraits, all produced after her arrival in Florence. This bust was exhibited by the dealer Stuart Lochhead’s at the last Tefaf in Maastricht (see article), where it was put on hold by Alan Chong - then Director of the American institution, who stepped down last month - and Kurt Sundstrom, Senior Curator and Director of Collections at the Currier Museum of Art.
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- 2. Félicie de Fauveau (1801-1886)
Portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux, 1840
Stained plaster - 17.5 x 4.2 cm
Paris, Musée du Louvre
Photo: RMN-GP/S. Maréchalle - See the image in its page
Born in 1820, the "miracle child" was titled Duke of Bordeaux but remains known as the Count of Chambord, a courtesy title he used during his long exile. For his supporters, led by Félicie de Fauveau, the son of the Duchess of Berry was King Henry V, the sole legitimate sovereign despite the advent of the July Monarchy. Despite strong opposition from the French government, the pretender travelled to the Vatican in 1839 escorted by the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts (1775-1851), a close friend of the Duchesse de Berry. He commissioned his portrait from the Florence-based sculptress, who had it delivered to Avignon. Still kept in a private collection, it preceded the effigies of the prince at the exhibition organised in 2013. "Henry V" could only have been addressed to Félicie de Fauveau, whom he received in Rome in January 1840 before travelling to Tuscany the following month, where he visited the Fauveau workshop. Immortalised in profile in a small medallion (ill. 2) preserved in the Louvre Museum and widely used for propaganda purposes, the young legitimist pretender naturally needed to have his image broadcast.
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- 3. Félicie de Fauveau (1801-1886)
Portrait of the Duchess of Berry, 1840
White polychrome marble - 60 x 33 cm
London, Trinity Fine Art Ltd.
Photo: Patrice Schmidt - See the image in its page
Félicie de Fauveau had already tried her hand at the "dynastic bust" formula with her mother, the Duchess of Berry, captured in marble: mentioned in correspondence between the Fauveaus and Félicie de La Rochejaquelein from the end of 1839, this extraordinary portrait (ill. 3) commissioned for Brunnsee Castle in Austria remained in the Lucchesi Palli family for a long time before recently coming to the art market. While the bust of the Marquis de Forbin des Issarts may have evoked a holy water stoup, here we think of a ciborium or reliquary enshrining an idol whose gilded inscription at the top, HENRICI GENITRIX, leaves no doubt as to its status: it is the sovereign’s mother. We can only echo Sylvain Bellenger’s description: "the almost incongruous strangeness of this extraordinary invention, which is as much Gothic as it is close to Art Nouveau, is without equal in all Romantic statuary". An embodiment of dynastic sacrality, the bust of the Duchess of Berry is richly embellished with gilding and polychromy, with the sculptress going so far as to add open pomegranates to the foot and crenellated towers to the top. This singular effigy thus made its way to Brunnsee Castle in Austria, where a few months later the princess also had the superb Sainte Geneviève recently acquired by the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art sent to her (see news item 31/3/22).
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- 4. Félicie de Fauveau (1801-1885)
Portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux, 1840
Polychrome marble - 43.5 x 35 x 15 cm
Manchester (New Hampshire), The Currier Museum of Art
Photo: Stuart Lochhead Sculpture - See the image in its page
More classical but even more committed, the bust of the Duke of Bordeaux was an immediate success: highly appreciated, it was the subject of numerous commissions from supporters of the legitimist pretender. Félicie de Fauveau designed three models, each different in size and with a few variations. Executed for the Marquis Forbin des Issarts, the copy (ill. 4) acquired by the Currier Museum of Art corresponds to the version where the portrait is inscribed in an ogive - surmounted by the Latin inscription Domine Salvum Fac Regem - resting on a large marble H. The prince’s youthful features give way to the symbolism of the representation, as he is ostensibly adorned with a cord, a cross and a mantle of the Order of the Saint-Esprit with clearly visible flames. The artist’s signature can also be seen on the side, surmounting the date of execution: 1840, as with all dated copies of this bust, some of which were probably made later. In 2008, the Historial de Vendée in Les Lucs-sur-Boulogne bought another version - known as the "mandorla" version - of the Portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux from the Galerie Elstir (see news item 19/3/13), while the larger model, sculpted for the Comtesse de La Rochejaquelein, remains at the Château d’Ussé in Indre-et-Loire [2].
This new acquisition of a marble by Félicie de Fauveau by a major American museum marks a further stage in the belated institutional recognition of this highly original artist, so many of whose works are still largely hidden from view. The 2013 retrospective and the new attraction for female sculptors - and marginal figures in the history of art - have of course played a major role in this trend, which we can only welcome, even if Portrait of the Duke of Bordeaux is perhaps not Félicie de Fauveau’s most seductive achievement, for whom hybrid creations on the borderline between sculpture and art object may be preferred. The Musée du Louvre, which was a pioneer when it bought the dagger made in 1850 for the Grand Duchess Maria Nicolaïevna of Russia back in 1982, has thus more recently been able to set its sights on two particularly original pieces: the lamp of the archangel Saint Michel (see the news item dated 21/2/13) and the splendid Santa Reparata (see the news item dated 21/3/18). American museums, for their part, have tended to prefer the marbles that made the artist’s reputation - the Art Institute of Chicago, for example, and its Saint Elisabeth of Hungary, acquired in 2014 - but a fine example of which has yet to be acquired to give a complete picture of Félicie de Fauveau’s art in the Louvre’s collections. Let us hope, then, that the Paris museum can soon follow in the footsteps of the Monastère Royal de Brou (see news item 2/3/20) and the Petit Palais (see news item 11/1/21), which have been quick to take advantage of the opportunities offered by the art market in recent years.