Rose adelaide ducreux biography of william butler

Live Auction Revolution. Lot Private collection, France.

He was the first European to work successfully with watercolors, using the medium to become the first artist outside of the Far East to paint.

Brought to you by. Alan Wintermute. Lot Essay Numerous women painters flourished in France during the late 18th century. We now know her work through just a handful of portraits, notably several self-portraits. These works reveal the decisive influence of Antoine Vestier on the young painter: the same seemingly simple compositions, the same taste for costumes, props and sumptuous decors.

Some of these portraits were exhibited at the Salon between and and were received to rave reviews, praised as much for the graceful models they depicted as for the balance of their compositions and the realism of the fabrics. Sadly, the career of Rose Ducreux was cut short: in she became engaged to the Maritime Prefect of Santo Domingo and sailed with him to the island, where she died the following year of typhoid fever.

The present work shows an elegantly attired woman in a voluminous green satin dress seated at her desk. Her extravagant headdress features a proliferation of red satin ribbon wrapped in bows around a straw bonnet, or chapeau de paille. In a particularly flamboyant touch, the bonnet actually connects to the satin dress at her bosom -- and is beautifully reflected in the green satin underneath it -- drawing the viewer's eye from the sitter's refined visage to the rest of her elaborate costume.

Our thanks to Joseph Baillio for attributing the present work to Ducreux on the basis of a photograph. More from Revolution.