French school (XVIII) - Ritratto di Élisabeth detta “Babette” Boucault, moglie di Pierre Alexis Roussel

Important female portrait of French school, dating to the late 18th – early 19th century, around 1790-1810.

The painting depicts a woman “Elizabeth Boucault elegantly dressed, portrayed in half-length, characterized by an imposing hairstyle and a large lace-edged jabot collar, elements traceable to French fashion between the end of the eighteenth century and the beginning of the nineteenth.

The figure is set against a dark background, in keeping with a type of portrait intended to represent the members of the bourgeoisie and notable families of the era. The rendering of the face, highly characterized and individualized, constitutes one of the most interesting aspects of the work.

Traditional identification

Particularly interesting is the presence, on the back of the canvas, of an old handwritten label with the following inscription:

“Elizabeth (dite Babette) Boucault
femme de Pierre Alexis Roussel”

The inscription traditionally identifies the woman as Élisabeth, called Babette, Boucault, wife of Pierre Alexis Roussel.

The identification is here reported as a traditional attribution documented by the ancient inscription on the back, without considering it a definitive authentication of the identity of the depicted person.

Pierre Alexis Roussel is a historically documented figure: he was born in Rambervillers in 1748 and died in 1808; genealogical sources indicate him as a physician and document his marriage in 1777 to Jeanne Elisabeth Drouel. He is also documented as mayor of Rambervillers from 1790 to November 1791, during the revolutionary period.

The presence of the ancient identification on the back thus adds an element of particular historical and collecting interest.
On the back of the canvas there are also old numbers/inscriptions, including a marking seemingly dated “1834”, whose original function has not been determined by the painting style and clothing, I do not think it is the date of the painting.

Contemporary frame of about 5.5 cm

Provenance: from a private collection, purchased from an antique dealer in Paris in the 1970s
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