Jules Elie Delaunay Art

Medium: original etching. Printed on laid paper by Cadart and published in Paris by Gazette des Beaux Arts in 1876. Plate size: 5 1/8 x 6 3/8 inches (130 x 165 mm). Not signed.

This superb French Victorian portrait oil painting is by noted French society painter Jules-Elie Delaunay. Painted in 1883 it is a three-quarter length profile portrait of the Marquesa de Escombreras. Her full name was Trinidad Maria Piedad Fulgenico de Aguirre. She was born in 1824 in Cartagena, Spain, the seventh and last child of Jose de Aguirre, a retired naval officer. On October 22nd 1843 she married Frenchman Hilarion Roux (1819-1898) who was a banker from Marseille who settled in Cartegena in January 1843. After her marriage she was known as Trinidad Roux. Hilarion Roux had arrived in Cartagena first to trade silver. He quickly became one of the main lead industrialists in Catagena then in the Mediterranean area. The couple later lived in France again, in Marseille and later in Paris, where Trinidad died in 1905 aged 81. Interestingly there is no similar portrait of her husband. In this superb painting, the Marquesa, aged about 60 in reality, is wearing a black off the shoulder dress...