Portrait of a woman looking to the right Portrait of a Woman Looking to the Right Portrait of a Woman looking to the right

Artist/Maker

DatesMade: c. 1775

Material / Technique

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 35 x 24,6 cm h x w: Passepartout 47,5 x 37,5 cm h x w x d: Ram 56,2 x 46,4 x 3,5 cm

Inventory numberNMH 8/2018

AcqusitionPurchase 2017 Magda and Max Ettler Fund

Other titlesTitle (sv): Porträtt av en kvinna blickande åt höger Title (en): Portrait of a woman looking to the right Portrait of a Woman Looking to the Right Portrait of a Woman looking to the right Label (sv): Porträtt av en kvinna blickande åt höger Label (en): Portrait of a woman looking to the right Title (fr): Portrait d'une femme regardant vers la droite

DescriptionDescription: Ducreux masterfully infuses vibrant life into the woman’s gaze. There is a naturalistic element here, characterised by the artist’s ability to capture an emotional state and make it unmistakably tangible to the viewer. This was typical of the pastellist and miniaturist Ducreux, who is also famous for his animated portraits in oil. Joseph Ducreux was a pupil of Maurice-Quentin de la Tour and one of the leading portrait artists at the court of Louis XVI. Ducreux brings a vibrating life to the woman’s gaze in a masterly manner. It has naturalistic features, characterised by the artist’s ability to capture an emotional register that is undoubtedly tangible for the observer. This was typical of the pastellist and miniaturist Ducreux, who was also renowned for his animated oil portraits. Catalogue raisonné: Acquisition of the month, January 2019: Nationalmuseum has acquired two 18th century portrait drawings. One is a self-portrait of Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée, while the other, by Johann-Ernst Heinsius, depicts an unknown woman. Both works are fully elaborated and demonstrate a technical virtuosity which captures both the personality and vitality of their subjects. Louis-Jean-François Lagrenée (1725–1805) studied under Carle van Loo (1705–1765) in Paris in the late 1740s. In 1749 he won the Royal French Academy of Art's travel scholarship for studies in Rome, and in the course of the ensuing years spent in Italy he was influenced by Guido Reni (1575–1642) and Francesco Albani (1578–1660), among others. For a period at the beginning of the 1760s, he was Court Painter in Saint Petersburg and also served as the Director of the Imperial Academy of Arts. Much later, between 1781 and 1787, Lagrenée returned to Rome as the Director of the French Academy of Fine Arts. Lagrenée specialized in mythological motifs characterized by a relatively austere classicism, but also created a smaller number of captivating portraits. The latter include a celebrated self-portrait, now housed in the collections of the Sinebrychoff Art Museum in Helsinki. In the profile portrait drawing recently acquired by Nationalmuseum, Lagrenée seems to depict himself with a certain amount of objectivity – a distance from his own personality and role as an artist. Despite his supposedly young years, he appears both urbane and somewhat sophisticated. This impression may also be amplified by the artist’s technique. While the profile is drawn with distinct contours, in the lines of the work as a whole the artist demonstrates a certain lightness of touch. This is a typical feature of the skilful draughtsmanship that Lagrenée developed during his studies in Italy. Like his brother Johann-Julius Heinsius (1740 – 1812), Johann-Ernst Heinsius (1731–1794) was active as a portrait painter at the princely court in Weimar. Later, Johann-Ernst also worked in Hamburg, where he was commissioned to execute portraits of members of the city's burghers. Nationalmuseum's portrait depicts a young, vibrant woman looking over her shoulder to her left (from the viewer's point of view she looks to the right, and this is the basis for the work's title). She is dressed in an expensive dress, possibly made of silk and adorned with a lace collar. Her hair is extravagantly styled and graced with a large bow and a cap. With a seemingly light and free hand, the artist has captured the young woman's lively and cheerful temperament. This applies not only to the slight smile that plays upon her lips, but also to the joy radiated in her gaze. By contrasting sharp contours in black crayon, shaded sections and white highlights, the artist creates volume and texture. Nationalmuseum's acquisition is an exquisite example of Heinsius’s portrait drawing. He masterfully instils the woman’s gaze with such vitality that she virtually vibrates on the page. Inventory number: NMH 217/2017 and NMH 8/201

Exhibited

Collection

MaterialBlack chalk (Crayon), Paper

TechniqueDrawing

Object category