Title: Portrait of a Lady

Medium: Oil on canvas

Date Of Execution: 1887

Dimensions: 16 x 13"; Frame: 20 3/4 x 17 1/2 x 1 3/4"

Signature: Signed and dated upper right

References And Exhibitions:

Early in my art dealing career, I purchased this wonderful academic painting from the late Eric G. Carlson (1940-2016). Eric had found the painting in New York.  Being an expert in French Art, Eric immediately recognized the signature on the painting to be that of Lucy Lee-Robbins (1865-1943), an American ex-patriot unknown in America, but somewhat famous in France. Eric knew the Carolus-Duran portrait of Lucy then hanging in the Chrysler Museum (now in the National Portrait Gallery) and her career at the Paris Salon.  Lucy had made her debut at the Salon in 1887 where she was awarded a prize.

The Unconventional Woman Artist

The scholarship on Lucy Lee-Robbins is limited.  Ms. Brandon Brame Fortune, currently Chief Curator at the National Portrait Gallery, wrote an excellent article on Lucy published in American Art, University of Chicago Press. In the article, Ms. Fortune details a life of a most unconventional female painter from a wealthy family, challenged by follow artists for her relationship with the famous painter/teacher Carolus-Duran. Many assumed that her artistic accomplishment was due to her relationship with Duran.  There exists a snarky letter from fellow American artist Cecilia Beaux being critical of Lucy for being the “massier” or manager of Duran’s classes.

Fortune sums up the controversy succinctly. “The word “protegee”, like “star pupil” was part of a coded, gendered language used to attack Lee-Robbins.  This sort of language permitted discussions of Lee-Robbins’s painting during the years before her marriage, when her single-and expatriate-status, combined with her position as Carolus-Duran’s most favored pupil, placed her precariously outside the boundaries of proper haut-bourgeois female existence.” (page 50)

“…while Sargent was praised for creating work that was similar to that of Carolus-Duran, Lee-Robbins received criticism for the same reason.” (page 51)

Lucy created many striking large, exhibition size paintings of female nudes.  Ms. Fortune sums up what today we would correctly scream as sexism and discrimination:

“…Lee Robbins’s singular position as the young, wealthy, unmarried, favored pupil of a notorious French artist, and as a strong-willed woman who painted large-scale female nudes, could not be assimilated within the American codes of conventional behavior. Although the French could appreciate her lifestyle and her painting, in the eyes of the American colony she had compromised her success as an artist and jeopardized her social position.” (page 60)

The painting

When Eric found the painting, he started researching how the painting came to America.  Most of Lucy’s paintings were created in France, exhibited in France and reside in France.  Eric found a reference to a painting by Lucy exhibited at the National Academy of Design in the Fall of 1887, Portrait of a Lady, No. 424 in the catalog. Later, I found that it hung in the West Gallery along with works by Francis Murphy, Carroll Beckwith, Homer Dodge Martin, Jasper Cropsey and Leonard Ochtman. The owner of the NAD painting is listed as J. J. Robbins (Lucy’s brother).  Although we cannot prove the provenance of the painting, our painting is dated 1887 below the signature. It was found in New York. Is it coincidence or is our painting, the painting exhibited at the National Academy of Design in 1887? No one will ever know for sure.

 

 

 

Condition Notes:

Excellent

Price: (US) $8,750.00

Inventory Number: FA3776