Madame de Saint-Huberty in the role of Dido

Vallayer-Coster, Anne (1744-1818)

Item type:

painting

Date of creation:

1785

Height:

145.8 cm  (57 3/8 in.)

Width:

101.6 cm  (40 in.)

Technique / Medium:

oil on canvas

Description

Trained by her father, a goldsmith and tapestry designer to the French king, Anne Vallayer-Coster gained renown for her still-life paintings, but also painted portraits of members of the royal family and other luminaries. Her depiction of Madame de Saint-Huberty in the Role of Dido reveals her deep knowledge of her famous sitter. In 1783, Anne-Antoinette Clavel (known as Saint-Huberty, 1756-1812) performed the leading role in Niccolò Piccinni’s opera Didon. According to Elisabeth-Louise Vigée-LeBrun, who portrayed Saint-Huberty in a pastel of 1780, “Mme Saint-Huberti not only possessed a superb voice but was also a truly great actress.”
Positioned against a grisaille rendering of an architectural arch and reliefs, Huberty is shown singing the verse: “Ah que je fus bien inspirée/ Quand je vous reçus dans ma Cour!” (Oh, how inspired I was when I received you in my court).
In her choice of subject (the opera derives from Virgil’s Aeneid) and use of compositional elements that draw inspiration from ancient architecture, Vallayer-Coster embraced the tenets of Neoclassicism. ----National Museum of Women in the Arts website

People as subjects

Saint-Huberty, Antoinette-Cécile de (1756-1812) (Musician portrait)

Iconclass

48C8313
portrait of opera-singer
48C8622
opera-singer (female)

Musical works

Piccinni, Niccolò -- Didon

RIdIM images

Image URLs

image link 1

RIdIM record id

4427