Dubois-menant, Portrait Of Gyp In Charcoal

Jules Gabriel DUBOIS-MENANT
(Craon, 1855 – Levallois-Perret, 1921)
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Portrait of the Countess of Martel, known as GYP
1889
Charcoal on laid paper
74x59 cm with its frame
Signed at the bottom left "DUBOIS-MENANT 1889"
Dedicated at the bottom on the right by GYP: "to Monsieur Dubois-Menant / affectionate memory and many / thanks from / Gyp"
Tears in the lower corners

This portrait signed by Jules Gabriel Dubois-Menant is dedicated by another hand, in this case that of Gyp, literary pseudonym of Sybille-Gabrielle Marie-Antoinette de Riquetti de Mirabeau, countess of Martel de Janville (1849-1932). The known portraits and photographs of this successful novelist of the Third Republic make it possible to identify her as the model for this charcoal.
In March 1889, Jules Gabriel Dubois-Menant precisely prepared a portrait of the Comtesse de Martel which he intended to send to the Salon, as reported by the art critic of Le Figaro who had visited some artists' studios before the event[1 ]. However, the portrait does not appear in the booklet, which suggests that it was not finished in time, that it was refused or that the model wanted it not to be exhibited. This last hypothesis seems quite likely knowing that another artist, Louise Breslau, who came to ask the Comtesse de Martel at the same time to create her effigy for the magazine La Vie moderne, obtained the following response: "I don't want to become a known head. But I like you and I will pose if you wish. »[2] This would explain this dedication of the model thanking his portraitist, who did not participate in the Salon until the following year. [1]

The Iron Mask, “Through Paris. In the workshops”, Le Figaro, March 20, 1889, p.1.
[2] Madeleine Zillhardt, Louise-Catherine Breslau and her friends, Éditions des Portiques, 1932, p. 102.