Portrait of Young Beauty with a Bird
Portrait of Young Beauty with a Bird by French Painter Theodore Fantin-Latour (1805 – 1872); a pastel portrait painter.
This is a beautiful portrait of a young platinum blonde that is posing against a shale blue black background in a bright period dress.
She has a pink ribbon that wraps around the hair through her curls and has placed in the top right of her hair a small collection of light blue and green flowers.
Her right hand is placed across her chest, in which a small brown, orange, black bird with white accents on its feathers and an orange beak with a red, white and black head stands on her index finger; and on her forearm is a velvet black strap that is held in place by a small jeweled buckle.
Her dress is made of satin or silk, with the sleeves and center chest and waist area being white and the surrounding area from her chest on downward being a reddish-pink color, with a pink closed flower with green leaves attached to the right front of the dress.
The dress has embroidered lace trimmings around its perimeter with silk ribbon bows on the upper sleeves and and center of the chest and waist; that are bright and shinny complimenting the luster of the dress and gold chair she is sitting on.
This portrait is assumed to be that of Princess Anne Henriette de France(1727 – 1752) the the second daughter of King Louis XV of France and Maria Leszczyńska and the younger twin of Louise Élisabeth of France; but compared to all the other paintings made of these sisters, I do not see how this possible.
This is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a canvas print online.
Theodore was a pastel painter of portraits and studied in the workshop of the French Portrait Painter Benjamin Rolland (1777 – 1855), who was a student of the celebrated Neoclassic French Painter Jacques-Louis David (1748 – 1825) and considered to be the preeminent painter of his era.
Under the influence of Rolland, Theodore mastered the skills of painting, drawing and forms rendering; and would exhibit his artwork regularly at the Salon from 1842 to 1866.
His son Henri Fantin-Latour born in 1836 was also a well known and respected painter of still life images and portraits; and his father gave him his first art lessons at the age of ten, after recognizing his talent for art.
