Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild’s Art and Souvenirs of Italy
Editor’s note: This post has been updated and republished here.
Jean-Léon Gérôme, La baronne de Nathaniel Rothschild, 1866.
“Un esprit d’élite, un cœur d’or, une organisation profondément artistique, une femme d’un tact exquis, d’autant plus discrète en faisant le bien qu’elle le multiplie davantage…”
The Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild was a prolific and accomplished watercolourist, printmaker, collector and patron. From the Parisian branch of this immensely wealthy and cultured family, her parents were Betty von Rothschild (1805–1868) and James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868), who were active in the arts and patrons of such celebrated figures as Gioacchino Rossini, Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix, and Heinrich Heine. Indeed, the family’s position in the Parisian art world was central. Ingres painted Betty’s portrait in 1848, and Chopin taught the piano to both mother and daughter. The composer also dedicated two works to Charlotte, his famous Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52—likely as a wedding present for her marriage, in 1843, to her English cousin Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870)—and, four years later, his Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Baronne de Rothschild, 1848.
Eugène Delacroix, detail of unfinished double portrait of Frédéric Chopin and George Sand, 1838.
Interestingly, in 1860 Charlotte published four pieces for piano (J. Maho, Paris), Polka in C minor, Waltz in F minor, Nocturn in C Minor, and Waltz in A minor. In the years since, the credit for the latter two has been given to Chopin, since they match, note for note, pieces published under his name. However, these “Chopin” pieces were published posthumously, in 1937 and 1955, respectively, long, long after the composer’s death in 1849, suggesting Rothschild’s pieces may well have been “absorbed” into his papers and eventually misattributed to the incomparably more famous Polish composer. In any case, such was the closeness of their relationship and the value of her own work that the discussion has even come to the fore.
Charlotte and Nathaniel continued the tradition begun by Charlotte’s parents, maintaining friendships with such artistic figures as Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Henri Rousseau, Édouard Manet, Georges Bizet and Camille Saint-Saëns, each of whom attended Charlotte’s celebrated salons along with a host of other artistic luminaries of the day.
As evinced by the beautiful album presented here, Italie. Souvenir d’un voyage de Nice à Génes par la Corniche. Vingt-trois de mes Dessins. Eaux-fortes (1869), Charlotte de Rothschild’s own artistic skill was equally impressive. Having studied under Hercule Trachel (1820-1872), Nélie Jacquemart (1841–1912), and Eugène Lami (1800-1890), she was well respected for her landscapes which she regularly exhibited at the Paris salon as of 1864 as well as in London from 1879. Rothschild was also one of only two women of the total 73 artists who participated in the exhibitions of the Société des aquarellistes français (the Society of French Watercolourists), of which she was a founding member, the other woman being Madeleine Lemaire.
It was under Trachel’s tutelage that Rothschild developed her great talent for landscape painting. The two often travelled to Italy on artistic excursions, and it is likely during in this context that the present album was conceived. The extremely rare and charming series includes etched views of areas between Côte d'Azur and Genoa, and serves as a visual record of one of the great Romantic voyages pittoresques, the journey began in Nice and concluded in Genoa, with stops in Menton, San Remo, etc. Most of the plates, as the title indicates, show harbours and coastlines from the viewpoint of the shore, although four are townscapes. The outlines of cities appear in some of the harbour plates as well; the emphasis falls on the romantic celebration of nature, with picturesque elements (fishermen, washer women) providing a sense of scale and enlivening the scenes. Unusually, the place names of the locales depicted are etched in the plate. Proximity is indicated by densely etched areas of black in the foreground, distance by a lighter and lighter line. The pitch-black areas are reminiscent of Manet, who had a great influence on the artist.
The album was published in a small number of copies, strictly for distribution as gifts to family and friends. We have only located two institutional copies: at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, and at the Bibliothèque de Cessole in Nice.
The copy presented here has a very appropriate provenance, bearing her ex-libris on the front pastedown, with the inscription 'Abaye des Vaux de Cernay. Nathaniel de Rothschild'. The Baroness’s purchase of the Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay in the Chevreuse valley after Nathaniel’s death saved it from ruins as she worked with the architect Félix Langlais to fully restore the Cistercian monastery to its former glory (albeit with some conversions to better suit modern living). She used it as a country home and it also provided an ideal setting for her exquisite collections of medieval and Renaissance objects.
Of course, this was not all she collected—following in the footsteps of her father, James, and befitting of her central position in the Parisian art world, Charlotte de Rothschild was an important collector of European art in general. A large part of her collection was inherited through her husband Nathaniel who passed away in 1870, this portion being particularly rich in Dutch landscapes. However, like her father, Charlotte’s personal preference in terms of collecting was for the 18th century, and she thus reoriented the collection following Nathaniel’s death, acquiring a number of works by Chardin in particular, but also many works from more modern artists. At the time of her death, her magnificent collection included works from Fantin-Latour, van Dyck, Chardin, Hals, Greuze, Delacroix, Rousseau, Troyon, and Fromentin, among many others. Many of these were bequeathed to museums including the Louvre, the Museum of Decorative Arts and the Cluny Museum.
Read the full description of Charlotte de Rothschild’s Italie. Souvenir d’un voyage de Nice à Génes par la Corniche. Vingt-trois de mes Dessins. Eaux-fortes here.
Astengo-Fiaschini, nos. 55, 99, 122, 123, 132, 147, and 160; La route de Gènes. La riviera da Nizza a Genova nelle stampe romantiche francesi, nos. 58-59; M. Hall, “The English Rothschilds”, G. Heuberger (ed.), The Rothschilds: Essays on the History of a European Family, Rochester, NY 1994, pp. 265-286; P. Prévost-Marcilhacy, “Charlotte de Rothschild: artiste, collectionneur et mécène”, Histoires d'art, (2008), pp. 252-265; Philobiblon, One Thousand Years of Bibliophily, no. 274.
How to cite this information
Julia Stimac, "Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild’s Art and Souvenirs of Italy," 10 December 2019, www.prphbooks.com/blog/2019/12/10/charlottederothschild. Accessed [date].This post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.