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Thee quarter portrait of a man turned to the right, holding rolled sheets of paper

A light-skinned man with short, dark curly hair stands with his arms folded in front of him, before an empty warm gray background. He regards us with a confident expression and a faint smile. He wears a white silk cravat tucked loosely into a yellow shirt, and a heavy brown coat with a wide collar. Tucked under his right arm, his left hand holds a roll of papers on which handwriting is visible. A red ribbon with a forked end sticks out from the center of the roll.

Gallery Text

Sporting the fashionable haircut à la Titus, this figure clasping a script in his left hand is the Parisian actor known as Dublin (1761–1820). He was once a member of the famous troupe at the Théâtre de la République and favored comedic roles. Though a prolific actor, he enjoyed greater fame as a costume designer. In 1804, he designed Napoleon’s coronation robe, and from 1815 until his death, he worked as the head costume designer at the Paris Opera.

Once attributed to Jacques-Louis David, whose falsified signature appears in the lower right corner, this portrait is now known to have been painted by Labille-Guiard and exhibited at the Salon of 1799. Some scholars perceive her name on the script above Dublin’s index finger, though others believe it reads “Pédrille,” the comedic role the actor played often in productions of Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais’s The Marriage of Figaro.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1943.230
People
Adélaïde Labille-Guiard, French (1749 - 1803)
Title
Tournelle, called Dublin (1761-1820)
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Portrait of Dublin-Tornelle
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1799
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/230367

Location

Location
Level 2, Room 2220, European and American Art, 17th–19th century, Rococo and Neoclassicism in the Eighteenth Century
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
71.4 x 57.2 cm (28 1/8 x 22 1/2 in.)
framed: 89 x 74.5 cm (35 1/16 x 29 5/16 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: l.r., black oil paint: L. David
  • inscription: back of canvas: L. David / Portrait [de?] Monsieur Dublin-Tornelle / artiste du Théâtre Français, et dessinateur / du [grande?] ... auteur des costume [sic] des / ... [couronnement?] Napoléon-- ami-intime Talma [per Cuzin in Winthrop 2003]
  • label: back of stretcher?, paper: [partial exhibition label, mostly illegible, except for the words "Dublin Tornelle"]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
[Briant sale, Hôtel des Ventes, Paris, March 27-28, 1851, p. 9 (as by David)]. Baroness Gourgaud, Thionville, France, Château de la Grange. [Wildenstein & Co., Paris and New York] sold; to Grenville L. Winthrop, New York, NY, 1920, bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1943.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest of Grenville L. Winthrop
Accession Year
1943
Object Number
1943.230
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK MAY NOT BE LENT BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • Andrew A. Kagan, "A Fogg 'David' Reattributed to Madame Adelaïde Labille-Guiard", Fogg Art Museum Acquisitions (1971), pp. 31-40, pp. 31-40, repr. as figs. 1, 4
  • Anne Marie Passez, Adelaïde Labille-Guiard, 1749-1803: Biographie et catalogue raisonné de son oeuvre, Arts et Metiers Graphiques (Paris, France, 1973), no. 149, pp. 289-291, repr. as pl. 110
  • Jean-François Heim, Claire Béraud, and Phillipe Heim, Les Salons de Peinture de la Révolution française (1789-1799), C.A.C. S.A.R.L. Edition (Paris, France, 1989), p. 249, repr.
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 255
  • Stephan Wolohojian, ed., A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art and Yale University Press (U.S.) (New York, 2003), no. 84, pp. 214-216, repr. in color
  • Stephan Wolohojian, Ingres, Burne-Jones, Whistler, Renoir... La Collection Grenville L. Winthrop, exh. cat., Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon and Réunion des Musées Nationaux (Paris, France, 2003), no. 84, pp. 224-225, repr. in color
  • Philippe Bordes, Portraiture in Paris around 1800: Cooper Penrose by Jacques-Louis David, Timken Museum of Art / Combined Academic (San Diego, CA / Chesham, 2004), repr. in b/w p. 30 as fig. 27, pp. 29-30
  • Yuriko Jackall and Philippe Bordes, America Collects Eighteenth-Century French Painting, exh. cat., National Gallery of Art/Lund Humphries Publishers (Washington, DC, 2017), p. 104
  • Alvin L. Clark, Jr., Francesco Buccella, Sonia Couturier, Marie-Anne Dupuy-Vachey, Melissa Hyde, Suzanne Folds McCullagh, Isabelle Mayer-Michalon, and Xavier Salmon, Tradition & Transitions: Eighteenth-Century French Art from The Horvitz Collection, exh. cat., ed. Alvin L. Clark, Jr., The Horvitz Collection (2017), pp. 464, 554-n.2
  • Paris A. Spies-Gans, A Revolution on Canvas: The Rise of Women Artists in Britain and France, 1760-1830, Paul Mellon Centre for Studies in British Art (London, 2022), no. 93, pp. 184-185, repr. on p. 185

Exhibition History

  • Salon Exhibition, 1799, Salon, Paris, Paris, 01/01/1799 - 12/31/1799
  • France and the Portrait, 1799-1870, Harvard University Art Museums, Cambridge, 12/03/1994 - 01/29/2002
  • A Private Passion: 19th-Century Paintings and Drawings from the Grenville L. Winthrop Collection, Harvard University, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 10/23/2003 - 01/25/2004
  • For Students of Art and Lovers of Beauty: Highlights from the Collection of Grenville L. Winthrop, Harvard University Art Museums, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/16/2004
  • 32Q: 2220 18th-19th Century, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

Related Works

Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu