Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild’s Art and Souvenirs of Italy
Jean-Léon Gérôme, La baronne de Nathaniel Rothschild, 1866. Musée d'Orsay. Image in the public domain.
The Baroness Charlotte de Rothschild (1825-1899) was a prolific and accomplished watercolourist, printmaker, collector and patron. She was born into the French branch of this immensely wealthy and cultured family, this branch being established by her father James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868), who founded de Rothschild Frères in 1812 and who married his niece Betty von Rothschild (1805-1886) in 1824.
Betty von Rothschild was an especial force on the art scene with her popular salons, and the couple actively patronized such celebrated figures as Gioacchino Rossini, Frédéric Chopin, Honoré de Balzac, Eugène Delacroix, and Heinrich Heine. So central was the family’s position in the Parisian art world that it was none other than Frédéric Chopin who taught piano to both mother and daughter. Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres painted Betty’s portrait in 1848. Following in her mother’s footsteps, Charlotte would have Jean-Léon Gérôme paint her own portrait in 1866, which he did in a wonderful Ingres-inspired work now held at the Musée d’Orsay.
Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, Baronne de Rothschild, 1848. Private collection. Image in the public domain.
Charlotte married her English cousin Nathaniel de Rothschild (1812-1870) in 1843 and the couple 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.
It was likely as a wedding present that Chopin dedicated his famous Ballade No. 4 in F minor, Op. 52 to Charlotte. Four years later, he dedicated his Waltz in C-sharp minor, Op. 64, No. 2 to the Baroness as well.
Notably, in 1860 Charlotte published four pieces for piano: Polka in C minor, Waltz in F minor, Nocturne in C Minor, and Waltz in A minor (J. Maho, Paris). 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-born composer. In any case, such was the closeness of their relationship and the value of her own musical work that this discussion has come to the fore.
Within this milieu, Charlotte de Rothschild also became an accomplished visual artist in her own right. Although she specialized above all in watercolours, her skill in printmaking was equally impressive, 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). Having studied under Ercole (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 was Madeleine Lemaire).
It was under the tutelage of the Italian-born Trachel that Rothschild developed her great talent for landscape painting. The two often travelled to Italy on artistic excursions, and it is likely 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 depicted locales 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 located only 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 Rothschild’s ex-libris on the front pastedown, with the inscription 'Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay. Nathaniel de Rothschild'. Some years after Nathaniel’s death, the Baroness purchased the Abbaye des Vaux de Cernay in the Chevreuse valley. With architect Félix Langlais (1827-1889), she worked to save the Cistercian monastery from ruins, fully restoring it to its former glory (albeit with some conversions to better suit modern living). Rothschild 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 a number of works from more modern artists. At the time of her death, her magnificent collection included works by 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.
See 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.
Editor’s note: A previous version of this article was posted on 10 December 2019.
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," 24 February 2021, www.prphbooks.com/derothschild. Accessed [date].This post is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.