La dernière Dauphine

portrait of Marie Thérèse Charlotte de Bourbon
gouache on ivory, signed "Chatain" circa 1825

When I went off to school, my father presented me with this painting so I could have something nice in my tiny dorm room. How long I've been attached to this wonky portrait with the bright eyes, its Empire gilt-brass frame of oak and laurel garlands and inexplicable rhinestones. I have moved it with me from one (tiny) bedroom to another for over 30 years.

This miniature was part of a collection assembled by my great-grandmother, who was something of a francophile. Over the last few months I have been cleaning and restoring the collection.

The portrait subject was unknown to me until recently when I opened the frame and discovered her name written on the back: La Dauphine Duchesse D'Angoulême. The painting is signed in the lower right front Chatain. After a bit of research I found that the noted miniaturist Hippolyte-Louis Garnier (best known to San Franciscans for his portrait of Lola Montez) had done a portrait of S.A.R. le Mme. La Dauphine, Duchesse D'Angoulême, around 1825, and made this lithograph after that painting. Chatain almost certainly copied after the same work by Garnier.

Garnier, Hippolyte-Louis (Paris, 1802 - 1855)
La Dauphine, Duchesse D'Angoulême
original lithograph with hand coloring, 1825

Marie-Thérèse Charlotte de France (1778-1851) was the Crown Princess and Duchess of Angoulême. She was the daughter of King Louis XVI and Marie Antionette, sole survivor of her immediate family, and the wife of Louis Antoine of Artois, the Duke of Angoulême. During the time this portrait was created she was in line to become the Queen of France, a title she subsequently held for a mere 20 minutes. She spent most of her adult life in exile in England and Scotland.

You can read more about the life of Marie-Thérèse in the historical novel Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal, and on Elena's wonderful blog, Tea at Trianon.

Lynne Rutter Murals + Decorative Painting

Miniature Portraits

Recently I have been spending some time cleaning and getting to know the miniature portraits collected by my great-grandmother. Many in her collection were acquired from a sale at the Metropolitan Museum in New York, and most of those were portraits of Marie Antionette.

I will be posting the entire collection in sections here as I have time.

Some of this first group of paintings were set aside for my niece in honor of her 21st birthday.

Portrait of Marie Antionette in a green dress, goauche on ivory, signed “Chatain.” Backed with white kid leather and set in a simple ornamental oval frame with watch-crystal type pillowed/beveled glass. Very likely painted as a copy of another painting, as a souvenir.

Oval portrait of a dark-haired lady dressed in the Italian fashion, watercolor on ivory, unsigned.

Portrait of Marie Antionette with a rose, signed "A.T." gouache on ivory backed with white kid leather, in gilt wood frame.

Portrait of Marie Antionette in an apricot dress, unsigned watercolor on ivory. This painting is much smaller and older than its elaborate frame, which dates from the late 1870's.

Very fine and pretty portrait of a young girl, gouache on bone ivory, signed "Gericault 1812" backed with white kid leather, in its original simple brass frame.

By far my favorite of this group, "Lady Smitson" as this is labeled on the back, is wearing the fashion of the 1780's and painted with a rare amount of texture, recalling the English School style. Signed "Gram" and dated "80" on reverse, and set into an elaborate frame.

Lady Smitson is so realistically painted that I am sure this is not a portrait of Marie Antionette, but of lady dressed in her style.

Click any image to view at larger size.

Want to know more about miniatures?
Read here about my obsession with Miniature Eye Portraits

Elle Shushan in Philedelphia has a fine business collecting and selling miniatures.

Check out this huge on line gallery of a number of collections on this extremely informative site: "Artists and Ancestors"

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

The Fabulous Peacock Parlor of Mr. Clem Labine

During our recent visit to New York, the maestro and I made a trip out to Brooklyn, to visit Mr. Clem Labine at his historic Park Slope brownstone.

Portrait of the Publisher as a Young Aesthete.

Mr. Labine is a longtime Friend of Artistic License, and the notorious founder and former editor and publisher of the Old House Journal, Traditional Building, and Period Homes magazines, all of which sprang from his passion for preserving and improving older buildings, starting with his own spectacular manse. It's no surprise that his home boasts outstanding original as well as restored features and is decorated in high Victoriana, complete with koi pond and neoclassical statues.

My favorite room is the Peacock Parlor, the formal sitting room on the grand main floor of the house, with its massive original casings and doors, high ceilings, coral walls, and crammed with art and statues. On the day we visited, an indoor bocce court (non-regulation) had been constructed on the spacious peacock feather patterned carpet. But the real story for The Ornamentalist here is the custom-painted frieze.

Unusually large at about two and a half feet high, the Peacock Frieze was designed and painted ~ 30 years ago by Austrian-trained Helmut Bucherl, ably assisted by Howard ("Howie the Grainer") Zucker, the son of a German-born decorative painter. Both artisans spent most of their professional life working for Rambusch Painting Studios of New York. The inspiration for the design was found in an old Dover Edition and embellished by Mr. Bucherl, whose Austrian roots show in the Secessionist-style elements. The ceiling has a very cool anthemion detail of stylized peacock feathers. These borders were painted using a combination of stencils, pounces, hand-shading, and gold leaf, and the entire room, including the ceiling, has been glazed. While the color are rather intense, in the intimate light of this room, they look perfectly balanced.

The peacock motif was adapted to create a four by eight foot ceiling rosette with a fabulous antler-branch spiral border and gold leaf accents which glitter above the electrified gas chandelier.
As you can see a gorgeous decorative painting job endures, like great architecture.

click on any image to view larger
anthemion is in the glossary!

Visit Clem Labine's new blog, The Preservationist

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting

Eye Candy

A splendid miniature eye portrait from the Victoria and Albert Museum, with a diamond teardrop,
via Tail of the Yak.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, miniature eye portraits were all the rage. This was after the late 17th century rage for miniature portraits of any kind. They were painted most often using watercolor or gouache, on a substrate of ivory or parchment, then set into a bit of jewelry- a pin or pendant.
In Victorian times the eye portrait was often a piece of mourning jewelry, but the origin of this form was as a token of love.
I have had, for rather a long time, an obsession with eyes, used as symbols in my paintings. So naturally I am fascinated with these tiny symbolic paintings, the lover's eyes.

an assortment of lover's eyes

According to The Art of Mourning:
"Eye portraits are considered to have their genesis in the late 18th Century when the Prince of Wales (to become George IV) wanted to exchange a token of love with the Catholic widow (of Edward Weld who died 3 months into the marriage) Maria Fitzherbert. The court denounced the romance as unacceptable, though a court miniaturist developed the idea of painting the eye and the surrounding facial region as a way of keeping anonymity. The pair were married on December 15, 1785, but this was considered invalid by the Royal Marriages Act because it had not been approved by George III, but Fitzherbert’s Catholic persuasion would have tainted any chance of approval. Maria’s eye portrait was worn by George under his lapel in a locket as a memento of her love. This was the catalyst that began the popularity of lover’s eyes. From its inception, the very nature of wearing the eye is a personal one and a statement of love by the wearer. Not having marks of identification, the wearer and the piece are intrinsically linked, rather than a jewellery [sic] item which can exist without the necessity of the wearer."

I'd love to be a collector of these, or to have just one of them. Perhaps I will paint one of or for my own best beloved, as a follow-up to the maxi-eye portraits I painted a few years ago, of Erling Wold, myself, and our "adopted" daughter Laura Bohn.

Eye portraits of Erling Wold, eye self-portrait, and Laura Bohn, at 250% of life size, oil on masonite.




Treasuring the Gaze more about Georgian lover's eye portraits.
Check out the highly enviable collection of Cathy Gordon
Oeil en miniature by Le Divan Fumoir Bohémien
Even more lover's eyes from Candice Hern

The Art of Mourning more about Victorian mourning jewelry
Interested in collecting? Antiques Roadshow has some tips.

Lynne Rutter Murals & Decorative Painting