Oil painting, 'A Fair Equestrian', Alfred Dedreux, 1848-1855

An elegant fair lady on a white horse set in a flat woody landscape.

Given by F. R. Bryan

Formerly in Moreau-Chaslon collection, Paris; presented by F. R. Bryan to the Museum in 1902.

Historical significance: This painting is a fine example of Dedreux' mature style. It shows a fair elegant lady on a white horse set in a flat landscape enlivened by a wood behind the figures. This composition is characteristic of Dedreux's output who favoured the depiction of horses above all while gradually developing a luminous palette. He painted a series of elegant amazons during the 1840s-1850s and specialised in official equestrian portraits depicting for instance the equestrian portrait of Napoleon III in 1853, thanks to which he was awarded the Légion d'Honneur.
This painting was probably executed during one of the last stays of Dedreux in England (1844-1859). The artist became soon praised by Queen Victoria and the aristocracy and received important commissions from the Ellesmere, Egerton, Seymour and Wallace…
The museum also owns a painting of a Scottish girl with a hound by Dedreux (see 744-1902), which illustrates the second favourite subject matter of the painter: dogs.
Dedreux was a successful painter and his art was deeply influenced by the work of such British artist as George Stubbs (1724-1806), George Morland (1763-1804), John Constable (1776-1837) and Landseer (1795-1880) while his Parisian friends included Gustave Moreau (1826-1898), Théodore Chassériau (1819-1856) and Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) among others. His style even influenced to some extent Edgar Degas (1834-1917), who kept a series of his horses and horsemen studies as models for his own compositions.

19th-century French art is marked by a succession of movements based on a more or less close relationship with nature. At the beginning of the century, Romantic artists were fascinated by nature they interpreted as a mirror of the mind. They investigated human nature and personality, the folk culture, the national and ethnic origins, the medieval era, the exotic, the remote, the mysterious and the occult. This movement was heralded in France by such painter as Eugène Delacroix (1798-1863). In its opposition to academic art and its demand for a modern style Realism continued the aims of the Romantics. They assumed that reality could be perceived without distortion or idealization, and sought after a mean to combine the perception of the individual with objectivity. This reaction in French painting against the Grand Manner is well represented by Gustave Courbet (1819-1877) who wrote a 'Manifesto of Realism', entitled Le Réalisme published in Paris in 1855. These ideas were challenged by the group of the Barbizon painters, who formed a recognizable school from the early 1830s to the 1870s and developed a free, broad and rough technique. They were mainly concerned by landscape painting and the rendering of light. The works of Narcisse Virgile Diaz de la Peña (1807-1876), Jules Dupré (1811-1889), Théodore Rousseau (1812-1867), Constant Troyon (1810-1865) and Jean-François Millet (1814-1875) anticipate somehow the plein-air landscapes of the Impressionists.

Alfred Dedreux (1810-1860) was from a family of artists. His uncle, a painter himself, took him frequently to the atelier of his close friend Théodore Géricault's (1791-1824), whose subject-matters, especially the horses, would have a long lasting influence on him. He later studied with Léon Cogniet (1794-1880). He received medals from the Salons of 1834, 1844 and 1848, the Cross of the Légion d'honneur in 1857, and commissions from the Duc d'Orléans, Queen Victoria and Napoleon III.

This painting is a fine example of Dedreux' mature style. It shows an elegant amazon on a white horse set in flat and woody landscape. Dedreux' art was influenced by Théodore Géricualt but also British artists as John Constable and Joshua Reynolds. His oeuvre responds somehow to the realist movement but borrows also some components from the Romanticists.

745-1902