Mary Josephine Drummond, Condesa de Castelblanco, as Astrea
Possiblypossibly by
Jean-Baptiste Oudry
(French, 1686 - 1755)
Afterafter
Nicolas de Largillière
(French, 1656 - 1746)
Additional Title(s)
- La Marquise de Dreux-Brézé
Collections
ClassificationsPAINTINGS
Dateca. 1710
Mediumoil on canvas
Dimensionscanvas: 24 5/8 × 19 3/4 in. (62.5 × 50.2 cm.)
frame: 34 × 29 × 3 1/2 in. (86.4 × 73.7 × 8.9 cm.)
Credit LineThe Huntington Library, Art Museum, and Botanical Gardens. Adele S. Browning Memorial Collection, gift of Mildred Browning Green and Honorable Lucius Peyton Green
Label TextThe painting is a reduction of one by Largillierre in the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, traditionally thought, on the basis of provenance, to represent the marquise de Dreux-Brézé but in 1981 correctly identified as condesa de Castelblanco. Another, larger reduction by Oudry painted after the sitter's death is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid; the face of the sitter in the present portrait is more reminiscent of the Prado version than that in Montreal, suggesting that it could be by (or after) Oudry.Astrea was the shepherdess heroine of L'Astrée, a novel published 1607-10 by Honoré d'Urfé (1607-1627) and a popular inspiration for female portraits in the seventeenth century. The dog, a symbol of fidelity, suggests that the portrait was commissioned to celebrate the sitter's marriage to the conde de Castelblanco in 1710. The Montreal portrait is inscribed on the back of the canvas in eighteenth-century handwriting: Agée de 20 ans. Le 14 Janvier 1710.
Status
Not on viewObject number78.20.11
Auguste Louis Jean Baptiste Riviere
ca. 1793 -1794
Object number: 78.20.17
