Portrait Presumed to Be of Countess Exelmans

Philippe-Auguste Hennequin (Lyon, 1762-Leuze, 1833) Portrait presumed to be of Countess Exelmans Graphite, pen and brown ink, grey and brown wash c. 1817 323 x 240 mm Although Philippe-Auguste Hennequin made his name as an accomplished portraitist during his self- imposed exile in Belgium between 1806 and 1833, few of his drawings in the genre have reached us. The only ones that can be cited are the portrait of a man, in the Musée de Tournai and the portraits of three children, identified as his own – Clélie, Néoclès and Auguste –, combined in a single drawing in the collections of the Université de Liège. The present drawing, which in all likelihood is of the wife of General Exelmans, is a timely addition to this series. It was in 1817, when he had been in Liège since 1812, that Hennequin came into contact with General Exelmans, who had been banished following the decree of 24 July 1815, for having joined Napoleon on his return from the island of Elba. Rémy Joseph Isidore Exelmans, born in Bar-le-Duc in 1775, was one of the foremost cavalry generals at the end of the Empire. He joined the army at 16 in 1791, and quickly became known for his courage. He was commissioned as a general in 1807. He was taken prisoner in Spain in 1808 and handed over to the British. Escaping from England in 1811, he travelled to Naples where Murat, who was King of Naples, made him his equerry. Baron of the Empire in 1808, he became a Count in 1813. He served with distinction, especially during the Hundred Days, and in particular at the battle of Ligny on 16 June 1815. His troops were under the supreme command of Marshal Grouchy, They did not take part in the Battle of Waterloo. In dismay, and wanting to avenge the defeat, Exelmans marched his men back to Paris, where, on the 1st July, they fought the last victorious battle against the Prussians, at Rocquencourt near Versailles. This was the very last sally of Napoleon's army, and it resulted in exile for Exelmans. On 31 January 1808, Exelmans had married Amélie Marie Josèphe de La Croix de Ravignan (1788- 1862), daughter of an aristocratic Bayonne family that had been ennobled at the beginning of the reign of Louis XV. Her father had been mayor of Bayonne during the Revolution and the Empire. The couple's first child, Charles, was not born until 1812, because the general was a prisoner between 1808 and 1811. Despite long periods of separation due to the ongoing wars, the marriage was very happy; several children died in infancy, but they had had six more by 1827. During the Empire, when her husband returned from captivity in 1811, Countess Exelmans was appointed lady-in-waiting to Queen Caroline, wife of Marshal Murat, King of Naples. Their first move was to Brussels, but the exiled couple soon moved on to Liège, which is where Hennequin painted portraits of their first three children: Charles (1812-1845), Amélie (1815-1848) and Joseph (1816-1875). The sketch is held in a private collection. The countess thanked the artist for it in a letter, in a private collection, dated 24 June 1817: "You could not have imagined the pleasure you would give me in copying the features of my three children so strikingly. My husband is equally pleased and thanks you most sincerely for the great trouble you have taken in doing so. We both very much regret that we are not in a position to use your talents, which will leave their mark in our history." Exile must have placed the couple in a difficult financial situation, and they were probably unable to commission the final portrait of their three children. The portrait was painted at the beginning of 1817, which is confirmed by the apparent age of the youngest child, Joseph, born in 1816. However, the beginning of the letter indicates that there was also a second work: `We have been in possession, Monsieur, of your two charming works for some days now', the Countess had written, and she was most probably talking about the drawing of herself. Presumably, Hennequin had planned to paint two pictures, the triple portrait of the children and that of their mother looking at them tenderly. But he would have had no idea of the financial straits the couple were in at the time. In the portrait, the Countess is sitting among hollyhocks in the garden of a château – perhaps Ravignan, a nostalgic reminder of her family's estate –, in a romantic pose that clearly conveys the pain of exile. She is wearing a dress with a high waist, as was the fashion at the end of the Empire, which makes it possible to date the work to 1817. Her shawl has slipped from her shoulder, and she is wearing a hat that casts a shadow over her eyes, a detail that, in spite of her half-smile, adds to the melancholy of her attitude. Although unsigned, this is unmistakably a drawing by Hennequin. It shows his usual slightly stiff line and angular drapery, as well as the grey wash that he often used. He has devoted a great deal of attention to the face; it is finely drawn, very true to life, and expressive of the subject's state of mind and her tender maternal love. The curly hair is very much in the master's style, as is the way in which he has drawn the foliage and the cows in front of the château. The hands are also very representative of Hennequin's style. We know that he charged for the presence or absence of a hand in his paintings, and the Countess's hands, on one of which she wears a ring, no doubt bearing her coat of arms, are particularly in evidence, with their characteristic spread fingers. But there is no doubt that to have such a portrait painted would have been very expensive, and certainly beyond the means of the Exelmans at the time. The couple therefore restricted themselves to the triple portrait of the children, and this drawing. The latter is thus a major work from Hennequin's Liège period, somewhat similar to portraits drawn by Ingres at the same time, although this one unfortunately was not painted. Exelmans was granted amnesty in 1819 and he returned from Nassau, where he was now living with his family, to France. Reinstated in the army, the general continued his career under the various political regimes. He became a peer of France and a senator for life, and was finally appointed a Marshal of France in 1851. He died the following year and his widow survived him for another ten year. Jérémie Benoit Translation : Jeremy Harrison .

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