French school of the late 18th century - Lot 8

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Lot n° 8
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4500 - 5000 EUR
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Result : 22 750EUR
French school of the late 18th century - Lot 8
French school of the late 18th century Portrait of Charles d'Éon de Beaumont dit le chevalier d'Eon (1728-1810) dressed as a woman and wearing the Order of Saint-Louis Oil on canvas 55 x 46 cm (With frame 64 x 55.5 cm) Restoration, lining Inscription: "Charlotte Geneviève Louis Auguste Andrée Timothée d'Eon de Beaumont, chevalier de l'ordre royal et militaire de Saint Louis, capitaine de dragons et des volontaires de l'armée, aide de camps de M. M Le Maréchal - Duc de Broglie, ministre plénipotentiaire de France auprès du roi de la Grande Bretagne". This portrait depicts the Chevalier d'Éon (1728-1810), a famous 18th-century diplomat, spy and soldier, known as much for his talents as for his unusual identity. Born a man and knight of the Royal Military Order of Saint-Louis, he served France as a spy under Louis XV, notably in Russia and England. From the 1770s onwards, he claimed to live as a woman - a claim officially recognized by Louis XVI, on condition that he wore women's clothing. The Chevalier d'Éon thus became one of the most enigmatic figures of his time, blending politics, gender and mystery in a society where these boundaries were rigid. This portrait as a woman bears witness to his second life, as public as it was controversial, and to his unique place in French history. The portrait en habit féminin is a rarity in 18th-century art history: it is one of the earliest known cases of a deliberately ambiguous representation of a person transgressing gender norms in an official or semi-official setting. The look, the head carriage and the dress combine feminine codes and martial attitudes, underlining the complexity of the character. This 19th-century painting is interesting because it reproduces an earlier engraving by Brandel. The purchaser of this portrait will receive the original book by Pierre PINSSEAU (1901-1946) L'étrange destinée du chevalier d'Eon (1945), in which our painting is shown on the flyleaf with the text of the chevalier d'Eon and his story, so it is certain that our painting is the original painted at the time to describe the author's life and adventures.
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