Louise Hersent (1784 - 1862) - Study Of A Young Italian Woman In Nettuno Costume

Louise HERSENT (1784, Paris - 1862, Paris).

Study of a young Italian woman in Nettuno costume.
Oil on canvas.
Circa 1836.
H: 54 ; W: 43 cm.


Giving up her public career a few years after her marriage in 1821, Louise Hersent did not abandon her art. Together with her best pupil, Adélaïde Desnos, she set her sights on teaching and ran a private studio for young girls at 22, rue Cassette in Paris.
Several fine works, notably portraits, were painted after her last Salon appearance, in Lille in 1825, but were never exhibited. This is the case for our Study of a Young Italian Girl, signed with the artist's monogram.

Since her youth, Louise Hersent had maintained a friendship with the painter Hortense Haudebourt-Lescot, both having been studio mates for a time with Charles Meynier. On a number of occasions, the two artists seem to have looked at each other's work for mutual inspiration. The first instance of this can be seen in La Dame de charité by Haudebourt-Lescot (Figure 4), painted in 1821. The motif of the two grateful children is taken directly from Louise Hersent's Henriette de France, reine d'Angleterre, abordant sur les côtes de France (Figure 5), her masterpiece at the 1819 Salon.

Our Study of a Young Italian Woman is Louise Hersent's very own interpretation of Leonilla de Nettuno (ill. 6), a study of an Italian woman exhibited by Haudebourt-Lescot at the Salon of 1836. At this date, the Hersent and Haudebourt couples still seemed to be close, as can be seen from a letter from Louis Hersent to Louis Haudebourt dated 20 October 1837[1]. In 1836, Horace Vernet, another very close friend of Haudebourt-Lescot, painted a faithful copy of Leonilla de Nettuno (Figure 7). Like Louise Hersent in his Study of a Young Italian Woman, Vernet signed it with his monogram H.V., in the lower left-hand corner of the painting.


[1] Mentioned inCatalogue de la belle collection de lettres autographes de feu M. le Baron de Trémont, [vente ; Paris ; 45, rue Saint-Lazare ; 9 décembre 1852 ; par Maîtres Perrot et Hocart ; lot 687], Paris, Laverdet, 1852, p. 102.