Julius LeBlanc Stewart

Waterhouse and Dodd, London
Private Collector, United States (sold: Sotheby's, New York, December 2, 2010, lot 73, illustrated)
Acquired at the above sale 

The following condition report was kindly provided by Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc.: This work has an old lining, but the painting has been cleaned and restored quite recently. There has been some past instability in the lower center, including the parrot and the table on which it sits as well as the red sleeve on the right hand of the figure, which has attracted numerous retouches that extend to the lower left corner. This instability has been restored rather quickly and with a slightly heavy hand. Better retouching could be applied here, especially given that the bulk of the picture is in particularly good condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Julius Stewart expatriated with his family from Philadelphia to Paris in 1865.  As a youth, his entrée to the ateliers of the city’s most famous artists was eased by his father William Hood Stewart (1820-1892), a wealthy businessman who held one of the most important contemporary collections of the nineteenth century.  While the younger Stewart first became a student of Eduardo Zamacoîs, his entrance to the studios of Jean-Léon Gérôme was followed by study with Raimundo de Madrazo. This training, both academic and informal, would have a lasting influence on his style no matter how modern the subject of his paintings became.  While many of Stewart’s works of the 1870s remain untraced, Lady with a Parrot evidences his attention to compositional structure and a detailed, naturalistic rendering of objects – from the mother-of-pearl inlaid table, to the sheens and textures of fabric ranging from incandescent pinks and blues to saturated reds and indigos.

Beyond its composition and technique, Lady with a Parrot blends Orientalist and Spanish elements, pointing to Stewart’s travels with Gérôme to Egypt in 1874, as well as his family’s long-standing appreciation of Spanish art (William Stewart was one of the greatest patrons of Mariano Fortuny, and virtually every Spanish artist who came to Paris visited  his home) (Ulrich W. Hiesinger, Julius LeBlanc Stewart, American Painter of the Belle Époque, New York, 1998, p. 19-21).  In addition, Lady with a Parrot reflects a personal moment in the artist’s early career, incorporating props from his well-appointed studio at 13 rue Billault (where Jean Béraud also had a studio, see lots 32, 35-48). In another work of 1875, In the Artist’s Studio, Stewart uses the table of the present work as a stool, while the wide, shallow bowl held by the model may be seen tucked under a cabinet (fig. 1).  Even the brightly plumed parrot was likely Stewart’s own pet, as suggested by fellow American artist J. Alden Weir’s description of the studio which mentions a “large elegant parrot with a long tail of rich color perched on one of the canvases, making a very unpleasant noise (Dorothy Weir Young, The Life and Letters of J. Alden Weir, New Haven, 1960, letter of September 23, 1875, as quoted in Hiesinger, p. 21).  

Lady with a Parrot is dedicated to “mon ami Fernando de L’Valle e Yznaga.”  Fernando Yznaga (1853-1901) was the only son of Antonio Yznaga del Valle and Ellen Maria Clement, and while Fernando grew up on a plantation in his mother’s native Louisiana, he also spent time in Cuba, where his father’s family had a sugar mill.  Likewise, the Stewarts’ wealth came in part from their Cuban sugar plantation, La Carolina, near Cienfuegos, where Julius spent the winter of 1875-6 (Hiesigner, p. 22).  Lady with a Parrot may have been a gift from the artist to his friend; the bond between the families was so significant that one of Julius’ six brothers was named Antonio Yznaga.