GUILLAUME GUILLON-LETHIÈRE Joséphine, Empress of the French.
Oil on ivory panel, circa 1807. 245x190 mm; 9 3/4x7 1/2 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto.
With—GIOVANNI BATTISTA BORGHESI. Marie Louise of Austria, Duchess of Parma. Oil on ivory panel, circa 1837. 247x190 mm; 9 3/4x7 1/2 inches. Signed in oil, lower right recto.
Provenance: Private collection, New York.
Guillon-Lethière (1760-1832) was a French painter born on the island of Guadeloupe. He was educated in Paris and was awarded the Prix de Rome in 1786. By the time he returned to France in 1792, the nation was in the throes of revolution. He befriended Louis Bonaparte, the younger brother of Napoleon I, and followed him into exile. Guillon-Lethière later became the director of the French Academy.
The current painting is a small scale replica of Guillon-Lethière's same-titled 1807 oil on canvas, in the collection of the Palace of Versailles. It was commissioned by the Corps Législatif to be a counterpart to Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres' portrait of Napoleon I.
