Image
Jean Nicolas Laugier, engraver
Description
Maker
- Jean Nicolas Laugier, 1785-1875, French, engraver
- After Baron François Pascal Simon Gérard, 1770-1837, French, designer
- Antoine François Piéri-Bénard, French, publisher
Title
Year
Medium
Materials/Techniques
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Materials
Dimensions
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42.5 x 30.8 cm (16 13/16 x 12 1/8 inches) (plate)
Signature / Inscription / Marks
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Lettered LL: "Peint par Gerard"; LC: "1818"; and LR: "Grave' par Laugier"; and "Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël Holstein. A Paris chez Benard Boulevard des Italiens N.o 11 et les Marchands d'Estampes"
Type
Credit
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Gift in memory of William Babcock Weeden by his children
Object Number
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43.400.162X
About
Wearing an Empire-style dress, a shawl draped around one arm and ivy—a symbol of fidelity and endurance—in her hand, Germaine de Staël leans on a marble ledge looking confidently past the viewer. While her dress recalls Greco-Roman tunics, her hair is wrapped in a “Turkish” turban, an exoticizing accessory fashionable at the time. A society hostess, novelist, and political thinker, Madame de Staël was a friend of Madame Récamier, portrayed in this gallery, and Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun, portrayed in the adjacent gallery. She was also an outspoken critic of Napoleon’s despotic ambitions—a stance that forced her to spend more than a decade in exile. This highly detailed engraving, executed in the French academic style, was based on an earlier portrait by Neoclassical painter François Gérard.
Lettered LL: "Peint par Gerard"; LC: "1818"; and LR: "Grave' par Laugier"; and "Anne Louise Germaine Necker, Baronne de Staël Holstein. A Paris chez Benard Boulevard des Italiens N.o 11 et les Marchands d'Estampes"