CÉCILE VILLENEUVE

(1824-1901)

Portrait of Marie Charlotte Constance Say, by her marriages Princess de Broglie then Princess of Orléans (1857-1943)

Signed and dated on the right; Cecile Villeneuve 1888.

Watercolor and gouache, oval 9.5 x 7.5 cm.

Original frame in chased and gilded bronze, 14 x 9.6 cm.

An autograph inscription on the back of the miniature

Exceptional miniature by CÉCILE VILLENEUVE (1824-1901), signed and dated on the right: Cécile Villeneuve 1888. The portrait is identified on the reverse of the frame: "Marie Say / Princesse Amédée de Broglie / Paris 1888".

 This is the portrait of Marie Charlotte Constance Say (1857-1943), through her marriages Princess de Broglie then Princess d'Orléans, was the daughter and granddaughter of the sugar industrialists Constant (1816-1871) and Louis Say (1774-1840) as well as the grand-niece of the economist Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832). Orphaned at the age of 14 in 1871, Marie Say inherited an immense fortune built up by her grandfather, the sugar industrialist Louis Say. At the age of 17, she fell in love with the Château de Chaumont-sur-Loire and acquired it on March 17, 1875, for 1,706,500 gold francs, paid "out of her savings as a young girl". On June 8, 1875, Marie first married Prince Henri Amédée de Broglie (1849-1917):  It then receives many artists and intellectuals such as the writers Marcel Proust, Léon Daudet and Jean Cocteau or the pianist Francis Poulenc. For nearly forty years, Chaumont and the hotel on rue de Solférino were the setting for sumptuous parties. Thus, to entertain her distinguished guests, the Princess did not hesitate to bring the troupe of the Comédie-Française or the Paris Opera and its orchestra to her castle by special train. André de Fouquières says that "the Princess, in love with oriental splendors, loved to receive the great lords of India, the maharajahs of Kapurthala, Baroda, Patiala. In October 1898, his friend, the Maharajah of Kapurthala, gave him a present of a female elephant named Miss Pungi.

For more information on his life, please see:

https://www.domaine-de-monteclin.fr/marie-say-1857-1943/

Cécile Villeneuve was one of Meuret's best students. She successfully exercises her activity as a painter in the Parisian high society. Villeneuve is considered the most talented of the miniaturists of the 19th century.

Excellent state of conservation.

Price: 5200 €

REFERENCES:

-Oeuvre mentionné dans Leo Schidlof, The Miniature in Europe in the 16th, 17th, 18th, and 19th Centuries , 1964. Vol. I p.851/852.

- Nel segno delle donne. Tra Boldini, Sironi e Picasso, n° 68, Domodossola, 2022.

EXHIBITS:

Nel segno delle donne. Tra Boldini, Sironi e Picasso", n° 68, Domodossola, 2022.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Catalogue d'exposition "Nel segno delle donne. Tra Boldini, Sironi e Picasso", n° 68, Domodossola, 2022. Bénézit, Schidlof, Bouchard, Blattel, Georges Foster, Thème et Becker, Lemberger, Busse.

MUSEUMS:

Carnalet, La Malmaison museum, Fabregat museum, MAA Laon, Briner und Kern, Napoleon museum