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Self-Portrait

c. 1812

Joseph Paelinck

(Belgian, 1781-1839)

Belgium, 19th century

Oil on canvas

Framed: 114 x 94.5 x 7.5 cm (44 7/8 x 37 3/16 x 2 15/16 in.); Unframed: 89 x 69.3 cm (35 1/16 x 27 5/16 in.)

Gift of Elisabeth Ireland and Robert Livingston Ireland, Jr., in memory of their mother, Mrs. Perry W. Harvey 1937.575

Location

202 French Neoclassical Decorative Arts

Description

Born in a small village in Belgium, Paelinck attended a local drawing academy as a youth. His skill earned him a scholarship to study in Paris where he worked with Jacques-Louis David (1748–1825), the leading French neoclassical master and official court painter of Napoleon I. Paelinck later moved to Rome to study ancient art firsthand and to participate in the city's lively international art scene. Paelinck's attire shows him as a dandy, wearing fashionable, subtly colored clothes. Over his black suit, he wears a box-coat—a garment having a wide, velvet collar originally associated with coachmen but popular among artists in Rome during the early 19th century. The coat demonstrates Paelinck's skill at depicting textures. Likewise, the simplicity of his desk and chair—based on ancient Greek and Roman models—reflects the highest fashion of the time.

Artist biography

Joseph Paelinck

Born in Oostakker, a village near Gent, Joseph Paelinck first studied at the Gent Drawing Academy. In 1802 he won the academy prize, enabling him to leave for Paris. There he enrolled in David's (q.v.) workshop, where he studied until 1806 before returning to Belgium. In 1808 he left for Rome and stayed there through 1812. During this period he regularly sent his paintings to exhibitions in Gent, thus establishing his reputation. After the fall of Napoleon, the Kingdom of the Netherlands was created in 1815, which included the present-day countries of Belgium and the Netherlands, and King William I ascended the throne. Paelinck soon was inundated with official commissions, portraits as well as historical, mythological, and religious subjects. He moved from Gent to Brussels, where a second court was established in addition to the royal family's principal residence in The Hague. His most famous paintings, La belle Anthia (1820, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Gent) and La toilette de Psyche (1823, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam), recall David's style during his years of exile in Brussels. At the time of David's death in 1825, ideas and taste had significantly evolved. The new bourgeoisie in power sought other subjects in another style, and Paelinck's neoclassical works became undesirable and were replaced by a more romantic art. After the break-up of the kingdom and Belgium's independence in 1830, he even contemplated going into exile because his liaison with the Dutch court was viewed with hostility in the new Belgium. Having outlived his own painting style, Paelinck died in Brussels in 1839 at age fifty-eight.

Provenance

Alessandro Contini-Bonacossi collection, Rome. Sold 1926 to Ehrich Galleries, New York. Bought by Mrs. Perry W. Harvey, Cleveland, 1929. Given to the CMA in 1937.

Citations

Paintings in the Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland]: The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1945. Reproduced: p. 32 archive.org

Exhibition history

The Fifth Loan Exhibition of Old and Modern Masters. Exh. cat. The Detroit Institute of Arts (October 1927), no. 77, Ingres, Portrait of a Young Man. Canvas: 27 ½ inches by 36 inches. Lent by the Erlich Galleries.

New York, Ehrich Galleries. (1929).

cma. French Art since Eighteen Hundred (1929), CMA Bulletin 16 (1929): 159.

Pittsburgh, Carnegie Institute. A Survey of French Painting (1936), no. 11 (repr.), Ingres, Portrait of a Man, lent by Mrs. Perry W. Harvey.

cma. Catalogue of the Twentieth Anniversary Exhibition of the Cleveland Museum of Art. (1936), no. 283 (repr.).

San Francisco, Golden Gate International Exhibition. Masterworks of Five Centuries (1939), no. 120 (repr.) (as Ingres).

cma. Masterpieces of Art from New York and San Francisco World's Fair (1940), no. 41.

Art Gallery of Toronto. An Exhibition of Great Paintings in Aid of the Canadian Red Cross (1940), no. 70 (Ingres).

Toledo Museum of Art; Art Gallery of Toronto. The Spirit of Modern France. An Essay on Painting in Society 1745-1946 (1946-47), no. 15, A Gentleman of Rome 1807-1811.

Cincinnati, Taft Museum. The Regency, Empire, and Directoire Periods (1947), no cat.

Detroit Institute of Arts. French Painting from David to Courbet (1950), no. 21 (as Ingres).

Buffalo, N.Y., Albright Art Gallery. Forerunners of Modern Painting (1952); see Gallery Notes (May-October 1952), 10 (repr.) (as Ingres), 13-14 (repr.).

Masterpieces of Art from the New York and San Francisco World's Fairs. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (February 7-March 7, 1940).

The Silver Jubilee Exhibition. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 23-September 28, 1941).

French Drawings and Watercolors from French Public and Private Collections. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (January 6-February 15, 1942).

19th and 20th Century French Art and Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Loans. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (June 22-September 1, 1943).

Baron Gros, Painter of Battles: The First Romantic Painter. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (March 8-April 15, 1956).

Cite this page

{{cite web|title=Self-Portrait|url=https://clevelandart.org/art/1937.575|author=Joseph Paelinck|year=c. 1812|access-date=28 January 2021|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}

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