Henri-Pierre Danloux
Paris 1753 – Paris 1809

Portrait of a Young Man
signed P.H. DAnloux in the left center

in a painted oval, oil on canvas in its original eighteenth-century Neo-Classical French gilt frame

21½ x 18¼ inches (54.5 x 46.3 cm.)

PROVENANCE: Art Market, New York, 1929; where purchased by A member of the family of the American artist Elbridge Ayer Burbank¹, 1929; and then by descent in the family until the present time

Our painting, that assuredly must have been executed prior to the artist’s departure for London in 1792, reveals a fresh-faced young man wearing a simple brown jacket, green vest and white stock. Displaying all the current trends in French portraiture in the years before and slightly after the start of the Revolution our sitter has been placed against a neutral background stripped of telltale attributes of class or profession. The overall coloration is subdued. Light emanates from his face and his expression is one of expectation. His right arm is raised away from his body adding to the overall impression that the sitter feels propelled into what can only be a bright future. The portrait is a perfect reflection of its time as it embodies hope in an image that is egalitarian and intentionally anonymous.

Henri-Pierre Danloux began his training with Nicolas Bernard Lepicié and first exhibited as a genre painter in the Exposition de la Jeunesse at the Place Dauphine in 1771. He was a close friend of Joseph Marie Vien, whose portrait he painted in 1775. When Vien was appointed head of the French Academy in Rome in 1775, Danloux went along although he never formally joined the academy. He remained in Rome until 1780, at which point he returned to France, settled in Lyon and established himself as a portrait and genre painter.² In 1787 Danloux married the noblewoman Antoinette de Saint-Rédan in Paris with a promise to give up his career. (An artistic career was still so poorly regarded that French fathers were unwilling to allow their sons to study the subject).³ Danloux and his bride traveled to Italy for over a year before returning to Lyon and eventually Paris, where he broke his vow and proceeded to develop a thriving portrait practice. His sitters included the sister and brother of Louis XVI, Madame Elizabeth and the Comte d’Artois. In 1791 he exhibited six paintings and one drawing at the Salon. Faced with the Revolution by early 1792 his aristocratic patrons fled, commissions vanished and Danloux was forced to emigrate to London, where he would remain until 1802. ⁴

In London he set up shop in the home of auctioneer John Greenwood in Leicester Square, which was also the center of the French colony. An engaging self-promoter Danloux once again was able to build a lucrative portrait business, engraving his most important commissions and exhibiting regularly at the Royal Academy between 1792-1800 ⁵ (all portraits with the exception of a figure of Calypso).

In London the artist also came into contact with Sir Joshua Reynolds, Benjamin West, Sir William Beechey, John Hoppner, and George Romney whom he particularly admired. Danloux for them represented one of the most fashionable French artists in London, and their interaction resulted in an exchange of ideas and mutual influences.⁶ As soon as the 1802 Treaty of Amiens ended the hostilities, Danloux and his family returned to France.

The assimilation of current English trends within his work would prove instructive to his French colleagues, as they were previously unknown in Europe.⁷

¹ Burbank (1858-1947) was a noted portraitist, most famous for painting 125 different types of North American Indians.
² Biographical information taken from Pierre Rosenberg “Henri-Pierre Danloux” in French Painting 1774-1830: The Age of Revolution, The Detroit Institute of Arts and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975, p. 356 and Colin B. Bailey “Henri-Pierre Danloux” in 1789: French Art During the Revolution, catalogue Colnaghi, New York, October 10 – November 22, 1989, p, 105.
³ Tony Halliday, Facing the Public, Portraiture in the aftermath of the French Revolution, Manchester University Press, 1999, p. 11.
⁴ Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 356 & Bailey, op. cit., p. 105.
⁵ Bailey, op. cit., p. 105.
⁶ Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 105.
⁷ Rosenberg, op. cit., p. 356 & Bailey, op. cit., p. 105.

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