Saint Amelia

Preparatory study of Saint Amelia by Delaroche

Saint Amelia, Queen of Hungary is an oil painting by Paul Delaroche which was investigated by the BBC TV programme, Fake or Fortune?

Lost work

An oil painting of Saint Amelia by history painter Paul Delaroche was commissioned in 1831 by Queen Marie-Amélie of France, wife of King Louis Philippe.[1] It was created as a design for a stained glass window in the Queen's private chapel at the Château d'Eu. The work was exhibited at the Salon of 1834. In 1837, it was engraved by Paolo Mercuri.[2] There is a preparatory drawing in chalk, graphite and water colour in the British Museum.[3] The painting was believed to be lost.[4]

Fake or Fortune

The Fake or Fortune team investigated a version, housed at Castle of Park in Cornhill, Aberdeenshire, to determine whether it was the Delaroche original or one of a number of copies.[5] This unsigned version of the painting, was acquired by the Neil Wilson when he worked for Christie's in 1989. It had previously been sold at Christie's in 1980 as a work by the French artist Fleury Francois Richard, and described as 'A Queen and her Retinue at Worship'.[6]

In the programme, Bendor Grosvenor shows a watercolour by Joseph Nash depicting the painting in the Queen's bedroom at Claremont House in Surrey, where the King and Queen lived after the 1848 revolution. Technical analysis showed that parts of the painting had been restored and it had suffered through pigment degradation. Professor Stephen Bann authenticated it as the lost original. He also showed a letter which records that Delaroche was disgusted at the state of the picture when he saw it looking over the commission of a stained glass window version and he restored the picture back to its former state.

References

  1. ↑ Royall Collection
  2. ↑ Royal Collection
  3. ↑ British Museum
  4. ↑ Bann, Stephen (1997). Paul Delaroche: History Painted. Reaktian Books. p. 165.
  5. ↑ Fake or Furtune web site
  6. ↑ Art History News
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