A presumed portrait of Gustave Flaubert for the Musée de la Vie romantique

29/2/24 - Acquisition - Paris, Musée de la Vie romantique - Thanks to a donation, a presumed portrait of Gustave Flaubert (ill. 1) has joined the Musée de la Vie romantique. An emblematic figure of realism, Flaubert also maintained close links with the Romantic movement, in particular with George Sand, his faithful correspondent, to whom three rooms are devoted on the ground floor of the museum, displaying among his drawings, the furniture and jewellery that belonged to her, and portraits of her close friends and family. The oval effigy came onto the Paris art market in March 1999, and was sold at Hôtel Drouot by Rieunier & Bailly-Pommery. It is listed on the Centre Gustave Flaubert website as a presumed portrait of Flaubert by Thomas Couture, or by his circle. Gaëlle Rio, Director of the Musée de la Vie romantique, expresses a number of reservations about this attribution and identification of the sitter in her detailed notice.

1. France, c. 1845-1850 ?
Presumed Portrait of Gustave Flaubert
Oil on canvas - 45.5 x 36 cm
Paris, Musée de la Vie romantique
Photo: Paris, Musée de la Vie romantique

See the image in its page

While the canvas bears a dedication by the painter in the lower right "To Gustave Flaubert" - followed by a fragmentary inscription, "..AR..SE. ", which can be read as "Arliste" or "Artiste" - the identification of the sitter is by no means certain, and has been cautiously called into question by Jacques Toutain-Revel - as early as the late 1950s, when he was president of the Association Amis de Flaubert [1] - and Yvan Leclerc, professor of modern literature at the University of Rouen and founder of the Flaubert website. Jacques Toutain-Revel, in particular, argued that, as regards this portrait never mentioned in Flaubert’s Correspondance, the model depicted at an unknown date, perhaps around 1845-1850, did not have the baldness that characterised the writer from his thirties onwards, nor the blond beard he sported in his…