For sale is an antique 1800s era JOSEPHINE PORTRAIT PAINTING ON PORCELAIN in an ornate carved oval walnut wood frame. This miniature hand painted portrait of Empress Josephine on a oval convex porcelain plaque is signed “Ruttan” on the outer edge. The numbers “1850” is handwritten on the back of the porcelain which may indicate an estimate of when the portrait was made but this item probably dates to the late 1800s or early 1900s. The back is also stamped “Firenze” with fleur-de-Lis in red mark which indicates this portrait was created in Firenze, Florence, Italy. The wood frame dimensions are 3 1/2 inches in height and 3 1/8 inches width. A superb collectible vintage painting.
Josephine de Beauharnais was born in Martinique in June 1763 and came to France as a young wife. Glamorous, stylish and a mistress of erotic arts, she understood that her only asset was her body and she became a mistress and courtesan to rich men. As she passed thirty, Josephine realized that her star was beginning to wane. To secure her future she turned her eye to a small, stocky, Corsican soldier, Napoleon, six years her junior and bursting with rude spirit. She was no beauty, her teeth were rotten, and she was six years older than her husband, but one twitch of her skirt could bring running the man who terrorized Europe. The marriage was not well received by Napoleon’s family, who were shocked that he had married an older widow with two children. In 1814, Josephine died at the age of 50.
During the late 1800s and early 1900s, there was an increase in the popularity of portrait painting on plates, cups and saucers, vases, urns, chocolate pots, ewers, pitchers and plaques during. Although these portraits were commercially produced nonetheless many of the porcelain portraits are of very high quality and appreciated for artistic achievement and beauty. Most of the porcelain painters copied their portraits from earlier well known oil on canvas works by such famous artists. Favorite subjects included famous men (Napoleon, Washington, Lincoln, Kings of France and England) and women (Josephine, Marie Antoinette, Catherine the Great of Russia and royalty of other nations). Beautiful women were a also favorite subject of porcelain painters and their customers. Many of these porcelain painting were copied from three oil on canvas painters Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun, Joseph Karl Stieler and Angelo Asti.
