Lot 92: Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp (French, 1790-1866, active

Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp (French, 1790-1866, active New Orleans, 1831-1839), "Portrait of Marie Emeranthe Becnel Brou (Madame Samuel Hermann)", oil on canvas, signed and dated "1833" lower left, with a handwritten label identifying the sitter en verso, 45 in. x 35 1/8 in., in a period giltwood frame. Provenance: Descended in the family of the sitter; to her granddaughter (from her first marriage to Pierre Antoine Brou) Louise Polymnie Josephine Brou Hebrard (1828-1905); and thence by descent to Berthe Marie Olivier de Vezin de Tarnowsky. Note: Widowed as a young woman, Emeranthe married German immigrant Samuel Hermann (1778-1853), who became one of the wealthiest merchant bankers in New Orleans in the early years of the 19th century. In about 1830 Hermann built the handsome townhouse at 820 St. Louis St. that is now a National Historic Landmark open to the public as the Hermann-Grima Historic House Museum. The museum's collection includes the splendid Vaudechamp portrait of Samuel Hermann which is the pendant to the portrait offered here, as well as Vaudechamp portraits of the Hermann children Marie Virginie and Lucien. Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp, who wintered in New Orleans from 1831 to 1839, is considered the foremost portrait painter in the city during that time. Reference: Rudolph, William Keyse, Vaudechamp in New Orleans, New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection, 2007 Encyclopaedia of New Orleans Artists, 1718-1918, pp. 392-393 Reproduced in Korn, Bertram Wallace, The Early Jews of New Orleans, American Jewish Historical Society, Waltham, 1969; and Rudolph, William Keyse, "Jean-Joseph Vaudechamp in France and Louisiana," dissertation, Bryn Mawr College, 2003, pp. 417-418.