« Oh ! Combien je l’aime ce bon M. Ingres, et avec quelle force je désire lui faire honneur aux concours ! » wrote Hyppolite Flandrin in 1831, in a letter addressed to his father. A favorite of the master from Montauban (1780-1867), the painter of the Portrait of Madame de Saint-Didier was one of those good - even excellent - students who perfectly grasped the manner of their teacher before she opened the way for him to express his own talents. Originally from Lyon, Hippolyte, like his brothers and sister, was born just a few steps from the Palace of Fine Arts. As they frequented this place with their father, it is easy to imagine the role of these visits in awakening their senses to the arts and beauty. Against Madame Flandrin's advice, Hippolyte (whom she imagined as a tailor) and his brother Paul (1811-1902) entered the studio of local artists Jean André Magnin (1794-124) and Jean-François Legendre-Héral (1796-1851), while the eldest, Auguste (1804-1842), studied under Fleury Richard (1777-1852). Introduced to Antoine Duclaux (1783-1868) through their first masters, the two young boys entered the Lyon School of Fine Arts in 1826, where they studied under Pierre Révoil (1776-1842), while openly expressing a marked admiration for the military painters of the time: Charlet (1792-1845), Bellangé (1800-1866), and Vernet (1789-1863).

In 1829, Hippolyte and Paul set out on foot for Paris to continue their training. While they hesitated to enter Hersent's studio (1777-1860), it was with Ingres, the most prestigious of his contemporaries, that they decided to study. Adored and cherished by their master as the children he never had, Hippolyte (even more than Paul) was, according to Georges Vigne, the greatest pride of his teacher.

Perfectly conditioned by the hierarchy of genres, as had been Ingres or his master David (1748-1825) before him, it is to history painting that Flandrin devoted the greatest esteem. His career as a painter of the Grand Genre was significant, although somewhat forgotten during the twentieth century. Two main reasons account for this: wrongly, he was long considered merely a very good follower of his master; furthermore, it was as a painter of large religious compositions that he was regularly praised, a pictorial register that suffered from progressive disinterest in the following century.

Despite his manifest talents for large historical compositions, the commissions entrusted by the State or the Church had the drawback of not being sufficiently regular and remunerative to allow him to subsist. Like Ingres, this led him to develop and exercise his talents as a portraitist, whose excellence was quickly acknowledged and highlighted by critics: « De tous les ouvrages de Monsieur Ingres, Monsieur Flandrin est peut-être le plus bel ouvrage. Il a toutes les qualités de son Maître : la conscience, la volonté, l’intelligence. Mais il a aussi l’obstination. » wrote Jules Janin in L'Artiste at the Salon of 1839.

For the 19th century, which is a true Narcissus, there was no more opportune moment to be an excellent portrait painter serving a flourishing bourgeoisie eager to immortalize their own image. The genre became popular, and Auguste Jal wrote in 1831 upon leaving the Salon: « J’ai compté jusqu’à douze cent cinquante portraits, et je me suis arrêté là, effrayé de ce débordement de figures aristocratiques, bourgeoises, grandes, petites, laides, jolies (…) ». Further, he attributed this to the vanity of the subjects as well as the commercial nature of the genre for artists. At the same time, photography emerged, and portraiture democratized to the point of being distributed in small format, as calling cards.

It is in this context that one must imagine the commission given to Hippolyte Flandrin by the Baroness de Saint-Didier, carried out during a stop in Lyon while the painter was simultaneously occupied with the decoration of the Church of Saint-Paul in Nîmes. Three years later, the Baroness de Saint-Didier commissioned her portrait from another Lyonnais artist, Louis Janmot (1814-1892).

The model is depicted against a green background, dressed in a black gown, seated in three-quarters view, facing towards our left. Her face, turned slightly, gazes at us. One hand rests on the woman's knee while the other is placed on her chest. Her hair is delicately coiled around her ears and gathered into braids at the back, held in place by a pink ribbon. Presented on a chair of which only the backrest is visible, a shawl is draped over her back as the only superfluous detail.

In this portrait, Flandrin confirms his affiliation with his master, where line dominates. It flourishes in graceful curves in the rendering of soft flesh, the rounded shoulders, the gentle oval of the face, the arch of the eyebrows, the shape of the eyelids, or the supple coils of the carefully coiffed hair. Auguste Flandrin reports these words from Ingres: « On est toujours beau, quand on est vrai. Toutes les fautes que vous faîtes ne viennent pas de ce que vous n’avez pas assez de goût ou d’imagination, mais de ce que vous n’avez pas assez mis de nature ». And indeed, this is what it is about here. The painter, in his quest for truth and beauty, follows the nature before his eyes, but in his Ingresque paradox, he does not hesitate to harmonize the overall softened, rounded forms, tending towards an ideal that would not deceive.

This formal harmony can blossom even more as it suffers from no material frivolity, the painter attaching himself to a very great sobriety of staging. Without falling into the trap of dull simplicity, Hippolyte Flandrin prefers a « épure exigeante » never even conceiving the ostentation of any element of ornamentation, decoration, or bright colors, perfectly contrary to his concern to serve the truth of the model. And while Ingres does not entirely depart from luxurious environments in his portraits, precious settings for his richly dressed models, Flandrin borrows from him the shawl, the pose, and the delicate hand gesture, as well as the attention paid to materials and fabrics, elements found in the portraits of Aimée Flandrin or Angélique de Cambourg.

As a guiding figure for the young painter, Flandrin proves in the late 1840s that he dares to emancipate himself from his old professor and go beyond his formal attachment to the Ingresque schema. Therefore, this period should be understood « à l’aune d’un dialogue et d’une émulation créatrice » between the two artists. While there is inspiration and influence, there is also personal emancipation and style flourishing. Unlike the timeless icons of the Montalban painter, which are « parfaites jusqu’à la provocation », Flandrin prefers an overall sobriety, a desire to morally elevate his subject rather than offer a icy reflection bordering on immortality. Simply put, a « vérité calme »  emanates from his work, encouraged by a palette without violence, discreetly enhanced with pink. The flesh is modeled in the shadow, the painter playing with shadows and half-tones, adding to the overall softness. No context disturbs the gaze, details are reduced to the essential, and the anecdotal has no place in an extremely stripped-down setting that invites us to appreciate only the model. Like a reflection of his own calm, discreet character, completely avoiding worldly matters, Hippolyte Flandrin chooses to serve the soul rather than the image of the one he represents. Softness and poetry, that's what the portraits of the Lyonnais painter are about, as Théophile Gautier wrote: « Nous ne saurions garder rancune au peintre de ces adorables portraits de femmes devant lesquels nous avons passé, aux précédents Salons, tant de douces heures de contemplation silencieuse ».


Hippolyte FLANDRIN (Lyon, 1809 - 1864)
Portrait de la baronne de Saint-Didier (1825-1900)
Oil on canvas (Original canvas)
Signed and dated in the middle right: Hipte Flandrin 1849
81,8 x 65,5 cm

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henri DELABORDE (contributeur), Lettres et pensées d'Hippolyte Flandrin : accompagnées de notes et précédées d'une notice biographique et d'un catalogue des œuvres du maître, Paris, H. Plon, p. 99 comme "Portrait de madame de Saint-Didier. (Peint à Lyon)".
Louis FLANDRIN, Un peintre chrétien du XIXe siècle : Hippolyte Flandrin, Paris, Perrin, 1909, p. 350.

PROVENANCE
Baronne de Saint-Didier, née Pauline Ferrèz (1825-1900), modèle de notre tableau ; Ferdinand, baron de Saint-Didier (1847-1930), fils de la précédente ; Passé par héritage jusqu'à ce jour.

References 
1. Henri DELABORDE (contributeur), Lettres et pensées d'Hippolyte Flandrin : accompagnées de notes et précédées d'une notice biographique et d'un catalogue des œuvres du maître, Paris, H. Plon, p. 147.
2. Cyrille SCIAMA, Hippolyte et Paul Flandrin. Paysage et portraits, cat. exp., Nantes, musée des Beaux-Arts, p. 16.
3. Cité par Bruno FOUCART, Jacques FOUCART (dir.), Hippolyte, Auguste et Paul Flandrin. Une fraternité picturale au XIXe siècle, cat. exp. Paris, musée du Luxembourg, Paris, Éditions de la Réunion des musées nationaux, p. 25.
4. Auguste JAL, Salon de 1831 : ébauches critiques, Paris, A.-J. Dénain, 1831, pp. 222-223.
5. Bruno FOUCART, Jacques FOUCART (dir.), op. cit., p. 30.
6. Héléna MARCHETTI, Stéphane PACCOUD, « Images d’une société », in Hippolyte, Paul, Auguste. Les Flandrin artistes et frères, cat. exp., Lyon, musée des Beaux-Arts, p. 212. 7. Bruno FOUCART, Jacques FOUCART (dir.), op. cit., p. 13. 8. Théophile Gautier, Salon de 1847, Paris, Hetzel, Warnod, 1847, p. 42
7. Bruno FOUCART, Jacques FOUCART (dir.), op. cit., p. 13.
8. Théophile Gautier, Salon de 1847, Paris, Hetzel, Warnod, 1847, p. 42

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