Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Success 02 02

"Jadwiga Potocka, Countess Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"No portrait painter has ever enjoyed such extensive Royal patronage as Franz Xaver Winterhalter. One has to go back to the age of Rubens and Van Dyck to find court painters operating in a similar international network of contacts. In both periods, recognized masters could transcend the normal barriers of country and culture with a style that was recognized universally. The links through marriage and friendship between the Royal houses of Europe were very close in the nineteenth century. Queen Victoria's epithet as the grandmother of Europe was almost literally true. A painter who established himself successfully in one court had the possibility of recommendations to other courts at the highest and most personal level.

The secret of Winterhalter's success was not simply one of good connections. His portraits gained currency because they flattered the self-esteem and pretensions of his patrons. He breathed life into the tired and debased conventions of Royal imagery. His monarchs and consorts were staged in settings of princely magnificence, but they remained refined and elegant figures of their own time. Winterhalter's style was suave, cosmopolitan and above all plausible. 

One other important factor underlying the widespread recognition of Winterhalter's work was the fact that it originated in Paris. Though he remained incorrigibly German in his habits and temperament, his painting represented that quality of high style and elegance, peculiarly French, to which other countries had always aspired. French taste continued to be a touchstone of excellence. In architecture, painting and the decorative arts, people took their cue from developments in Paris. Among the highest classes in Germany, Poland and Russia, the passion for things French exercised a pervasive influence. With the prestige of French art behind him, Winterhalter came armed with impeccable credentials. 

The courts of Europe rewarded the artist for his services with appropriate marks of respect: The Order of St. Anne, third class, from the Russian court; the Royal Order of the Red Eagle, third class, from the Prussians; the Imperial Franz Josef Order from the Austrians; the Comenthur Cross from the Württembergs. The rank accorded to him was similar to that of a minor court official. Only in France was he given higher recognition, becoming a chevalier of the Légion d'Honneur in 1857." 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: International Portraits 1 31

"Roza Portocka" by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"Outside the Imperial Court, Franz Xaver Winterhalter continued to fulfill a wide range of international obligations. In 1852, he travelled to Spain with a friend to paint a flamboyant state portrait of Queen Isabella. In 1854 followed portraits of King Pedro of Portugal and his brother, the Duke of Oporto, the Belgian Prince de Chimay, Princesse Murat, Queen Victoria's Indian protétgé the Maharajah Duleep Singh, and her son, Prince Leopold, William I of Prussia, and the artist's old patron, the widowed Sophie of Baden, elegant and beautiful to the end. In 1856, he briefly visited England, executing a set of watercolours of the Queen and her family.

The most extensive journey of 1856, however, was much further afield, to Warsaw. His patronsin Paris had included many of the great Polish families, the Potockis, Krasinskis and Branickis, who were closely linked by ties of marriage and friendship. These Francophile families were well-established in Parisian society and noted for their beauty, earlth and taste. Winterhalter found them congenial spirits.

The year of the Poles was 1845, 1857 the year of the Russians. In the summer of that year, Winterhalter went to Bad Brückinau to paint the Tsar and Tsarina. Writing from Germany on 26 July 1857, the Tsarina's lady-in-waiting, Countess Tolstoi, acknowledged the arrival of these two works:

'I displayed them skillfully and in a good light, and only then did their Majesties enter. I wanted to see the first impression in order to report it to you, my dear Monsieur Winterhalter. Well, you must be satisfied, for both the Emperor and the Empress were delighted and did not know which of the two portraits to prefer, each being thrilled. But there was a still bigger exhibition and among the numerous guest was the King of Prussia, who greatly admired your work and told us that you painted him in two sittings. Opinions on the likeness of the two portraits were divided as is usual, but the enthusiasm for the beauty of the painting was universal and unanimous. As I looked at the beautiful pictures I myself thought I was once again in the beautiful Peterstal, where we have spent so many lovely days. I only wish that you will not forget them and that the memory of them may one day bring you to St. Petersburg, where you will find the same friends again.' 

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Winterhalter: Court Painter to Napoleon III 1 30 2026

"Emperor Napoleon III"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter

"It may seem strange that the court painter of an overturned dynasty should be employed by the dynasty succeeding it, but the connection between art and politics is rarely straight-forward. Napoleon III set out to mobilize the best artistic talents of the time in the service of the state irrespective of past loyalties.

Artists were regularly invited to the famous series of week-long parties given four or five times a year at Compiègne, when the Emperor and Empress entertained a gathering of distinguished guests from all walks of life. Winterhalter was invited to Compiègne in 1853, before the séries élégantes had begun, the first artist to be so honoured. The invitation was no doubt a result of the commission he had received to paint the state portraits of the Imperial couple. These were finished in December 1853 at a cost of 24,000 francs.

So huge was the reproduction business that special request forms were printed to cope with the  demand. The portraits were engraved, transferred to Sèvres porcelain, woven into tapestry, made into miniatures, interpreted in sculpture, to become universal talismans of the Second Empire. It was as a painter extraordinary to the Empress that Winterhalter left his mark on the Second Empire. With unerring judgement she had selected him as the artist best able to do justice to herself and the ladies of the court, and she treated him generously. She gave orders for a studio to be constructed in the attics of the Tuileries: 'she decorated this with rich stuffs and objects of art. Here artists showed her their works and here Royalty sat for them.

In 1855, Winterhalter painted his masterpiece, 'The Empress Eugénie Surrounded by her Ladies-in-Waiting.' When the picture was finished, it was unveiled before the Emperor and Empress at the Tuileries. 'It enchangted their Majesties. The likeness and admirable conception were appreciated by all. The picture was subsequently exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in 1855 to a mixed critical reception where it was awarded a first-class medal."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")  

 

Franz Xaver Winterhalter: Revolution 01 29

"Countess Eliza Krasinska, née Branicka"
by Franz Xaver Winterhalter 

"In a letter to a friend in Holland in 1846, Franz Xaver Winterhalter wrote: 'Soon I will have done with the entire royal family [of France], and then should end the period of portrait painting for me, and I shall be able to resume my way in the arts which derive their inspiration from the imagination, a pleasure which one cannot enjoy as a portrait painter.'

Two years later Winterhalter's wish was almost granted, but not in a way he could have foreseen. The Revolution of 1848 swept away the Orléanist monarchy, whose patronage had established him, and with it the world he knew and admired. The Revolution realized all the worst fears of this deeply conservative man, with his reverence for order and authority. The events which he was forced to witness in Paris, as the mob took control of the city, overturned the army and forced the abdication of the King, appalled him. He withdrew to Switzerland. 

The following March Winterhalter crossed to England, which seemed like a welcoming haven after the storms ravaging Europe. He confided his experiences to Queen Victoria, who wrote them in her journal: 

'We talked of France and Germany and the horrors of the past year; and he said that what he saw at Paris had made a terrible impression upon him, and that he had been unfortunate enough to come in for a revolution in almost every place! The fate of the French Royal Family and the behaviour of Germany is what distresses him most.'

Professional pride prevented him from giving up or giving way to despair. He had commitments to fulfill, portraits to paint. He was still in demand. Persistence saw him through from the fall of one dynasty to the rise of another."

To be continued

(Excerpts from the introduction by Richard Ormund, to "Franz Xaver Winterhalter and the Courts of Europe 1830-70.")