Luigi Calamatta

Window mounted. A little very light foxing, otherwise good condition.
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This drawing and lot 675 originate from the intimate artistic circle of Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, and indeed both sitters were also portrayed by Ingres himself.

Henriette-Ursule Claire (1764-1838) was probably the illegitimate, but in any case the adopted, daughter of Charles Thévenin, from 1816 the director of the French Academy in Rome.  In June 1819 she married the French engraver André-Bênoit Taurel (1794-1859), a recently arrived winner of the Prix de Rome.  At their wedding feast, an album was presented containing written and drawn contributions by French artists and friends, including Ingres.  Thévenin gave the couple two drawn portraits by Ingres which he had received from the artist in 1816: one his own portrait and the other representing the bride, with her faithful dog Trim.  Ingres himself completed the family group by contributing a matching portrait of Taurel.  These three drawings are respectively in the Gemeentemuseum The Hague, the Musée Bonnat, Bayonne, and in a private collection.¹

The Taurels stayed in Rome until 1823, and afterwards remained good friends with Ingres and his wife in Paris.  Five years later, André-Bênoit was appointed professor of engraving at the Royal Academy of Arts in Amsterdam, but even though they would remain there until his death more than three decades later, the Taurels' intimate relationship with Ingres continued.  In 1830 Ingres presented Taurel with the beautiful portrait of his wife Madeleine with the artist himself in the background (Private Collection, New York), inscribing the drawing 'à ses bons amis Taurel'.²  By this time, Ingres and his wife were already the godparents of the Taurels' two eldest children, and Marie-Madeleine Ingres assumed the same role twice more, when further Taurel children were baptized in Amsterdam in 1831 and 1833.  At both these later christenings, the godfather was Luigi Calamatta.

Calamatta had become friends with Taurel through Ingres, and studied engraving with him in Rome.  Following his return to Paris in 1823, Calamatta became Ingres' principal engraver and also a trusted friend; Ingres drew his portrait in 1828 (Musée Carnavalet, Paris). Late in 1829, Calamatta travelled to Amsterdam, where the Taurels were by then living, and stayed there with his friends for some three years.  His aim was apparently to work in peace on the engraving after Ingres' large painting The Vow of Louis XIII, but as Louis Marcotte wrote: 'Il a trouvé à gagner de l'argent en faisant des portraits dessinés à la manière d'Ingres. Il en a fait beaucoup et a oublié la gravure'.³  The present very sensitive portrait of Henriëtte-Ursule Claire Taurel-Thévenin, which is indeed very much in the manner of Ingres, must have been made by Calamatta to thank his hosts the Taurels for their hospitality.

Calamatta went on to hold for many years the position of professor of engraving at the Art Academy in Brussels, and spent the final years of his life in Milan, but always remained in close contact with his friends the Taurels.⁴  His best drawings, such as the present example or the portrait of Marie Marcotte, recently on the London art market,⁵ are very close indeed to Ingres' portrait style of the late 1820s and 1830s, and the outstanding quality of his work is becoming increasingly widely recognized.  Among his most famous portraits are those of Franz List and of George Sand, whose son married Calamatta's daughter Lina.

1.  Formerly in the Yves Saint Laurent and Pierre Bergé collection, sold Paris, Christie's, 23 February 2009, lot 79; see H. Naef, Die Bildniszeichnungen von J.-A.-D. Ingres, Bern 1977, Chapter 88 and cat. nos. 190-191 and 241; G. Tinterow and P. Conisbee (eds.), Portraits by Ingres. Image of an Epoch, exhib. cat., London / New York / Washington 1999-2000, cats. 73, 84
2.  See Portraits by Ingres, no. 109, and Private treasures: four centuries of European master drawings, exhib. cat., New York / Washington 2007, no. 193
3.  Letter of 22 November 1832; see Léopold Robert – Marcotte d'Argenteuil. Correspondance 1824-1835. Ed. Pierre Cassier, Neuchâtel 2005, p. 252
4.  According to the Album Taurel, contained in lot 675, below, p. 22
5.  Sale, London, Christie's, 8 July 2009, lot 130