Joseph Ducreux Portrait of a Young Woman Black charcoal and stump heightened with white on blue paper PROVENANCE Clearly a study from life, this vivid portrait captures not only the subject's likeness but also her appealing personality. From the crisp, fluted cap and open neck fichu she wears, it is likely she is a servant. Her sympathetic and ingenuous charm, described with confident, vigorous strokes of black chalk place this work among Ducreux's most expressive portraits. Her beauty is a departure from the conventional society and noble sitters who dominate his oeuvre. Another powerful drawing, close in date and style, is Ducreux's portrait of king Louis XVI, in charcoal heightened with white which was drawn either in prison at the Temple or at Louis's trial. It is the last image of the doomed monarch and reveals his state of mind as well as prematurely aged countenance. In both drawings, boldness of stroke and close-up observation of facial expression, along with a deliberate lack of finish, confirm the lasting influence of Quentin de La Tour, his master. Ducreux drew and painted, in oil and pastel, a range of sitters from members of the royal courts of Vienna and Paris, to his circle of friends and family in Paris. In 1769, he went to Vienna to record the likeness of the young archduchess Marie-Antoinette for the formal engagement to the future Louis XVI. As a result, Ducreux remained close to the royal family, enjoyed their patronage, and became Premier Peintre to Marie Antoinette. Following the executions of Louis and Marie-Antoinette, the artist received many of the personal belongings they had kept in prison. These remained in the Ducreux family until the posthumous sale of his granddaughter Gabrielle Gendron-Maignen-Ducreux (Paris, 16-17 January 1865). After the Revolution in 1791, Ducreux moved to London. As well as being an accomplished portraitist, the artist became a specialist in têtes d'expressions, especially self-portraits that allowed him to analyze his emotions and moods as manifest in extreme, even theatrical facial expressions. He probably knew Charles Le Brun's systematic codification of emotions published ca.1670 for the Académie Royale. However, Ducreux, never admitted to the Academy, might have been inspired by a more recent publication by Johann Kasper Lavater, of his Physiognomische Fragmente, available in French translation by 1781. Physiognomic studies became something of a fad during the ancien régime. Eunice Williams |
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