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Comtesse de La Tour-Maubourg (Marie-Louise-Charlotte-Gabrielle Thomas de Pange, 1816–1850)

1841
Not on view

This likeness of the wife of the French ambassador to the Vatican expresses Chassériau’s subtle defiance of J. A. D. Ingres, his teacher. He subverted Ingres’s approach by casting a melancholic mood over the picture, by banishing bright colors, and by abandoning the master’s meticulous naturalism and smooth polish for a stylized and painterly depiction of sitter and setting. (The countess posed in the garden of the French embassy in Rome.) When the portrait was shown at the 1841 Salon, critics objected to its Romantic qualities—the expressive elongation of the head, the gazelle-like eyes, the pallor of the skin, and the delicacy of the hands.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Comtesse de La Tour-Maubourg (Marie-Louise-Charlotte-Gabrielle Thomas de Pange, 1816–1850)
  • Artist: Théodore Chassériau (French, Le Limon, Saint-Domingue, West Indies 1819–1856 Paris)
  • Date: 1841
  • Medium: Oil on canvas
  • Dimensions: 52 x 37 1/4 in. (132.1 x 94.6 cm)
  • Classification: Paintings
  • Credit Line: Wrightsman Fund, 2002
  • Object Number: 2002.291
  • Curatorial Department: European Paintings

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Portrait of Jennins, Théodore Chassériau French, Graphite and touches of black chalk on beige laid paper
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The Baroness Duperré and Her Daughters, Théodore Chassériau French, Graphite on wove paper
The Baroness Duperré and Her Daughters
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Apollo and Daphne
Théodore Chassériau
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Mass, Théodore Chassériau French, Brush and brown and gray wash, heightened with white, over graphite
Mass
Théodore Chassériau
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