Category Archives: Art History

James Tissot’s Mourners at Auction

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. James Tissot’s Mourners at Auction. The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2017/01/30/james-tissots-mourners-at-auction/. <Date viewed.>

All auction prices listed are for general reader interest only, and are shown in this order: $ (USD)/£ (GBP). All prices listed are Hammer Price (the winning bid amount) unless noted as Premium, indicating that the figure quoted includes the Buyer’s Premium of an additional percentage charged by the auction house, as well as taxes.

The whereabouts of James Tissot’s The Widow (Une Veuve, 1868), exhibited at the Salon in Paris in 1869, was for many years unknown by art historians. It was known to the art world only because Tissot had included it in a photograph album of his work; he was one of the first painters to document his entire oeuvre using photography.

A Widow (Une veuve, 1868), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 27 by 19.5 in. (68.5 by 49.5 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The Widow was purchased during World War II at Acquavella, the New York gallery, and was hung in a mansion abroad. In September, 1982, it was discovered, hanging behind a door, by Thilo von Watzdorf (b. 1944), Sotheby’s 19^th century art specialist, who was visiting the owner to see other paintings in her collection.

Scholars enhanced interest in Tissot’s life and work during the 1980s, and dozens of Tissot oils changed hands from 1980-89.

Sotheby’s estimated The Widow would bring $150,000 to $200,000 at auction, breaking the record high for a Tissot of $148,230 set for his Return of the Prodigal Son at Christie’s, London, in 1982.

The Widow was offered in a sale of 19^th century European paintings, drawings and watercolors at Sotheby’s, New York in February, 1983, bringing $ 185,000 USD/£ 121,105 GBP.

In June 1992, The Widow brought $ 277,800 USD/£ 150,000 GBP at a sale of Victorian Pictures & Watercolours at Christie’s, London.

In early 1993, Victorian art expert Christopher Wood (1941 – 2009) commented on the popularity of James Tissot’s oil paintings among Manhattan Society hostesses: “I can think of ten to twenty Tissots within a few blocks of each other in New York.”

In New York in February of that year, Sotheby’s offered three major Tissot paintings, and Christie’s two.

Sans dot (Without Dowry, 1883-85), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 58 by 41 in. (147.32 by 104.14 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The three paintings at Sotheby’s, from Tissot’s series of fifteen large-scale pictures called La Femme à Paris (The Parisian Woman) painted between 1883 and 1885, included Sans Dot (Without Dowry), which sold for $ 800,000/£ 553,824.

Orphans (L’Orpheline, 1879), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 85 by 43 in. (216 by 109.2 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The next day, at Christie’s sale of 19th Century European Paintings, Drawings & Watercolors, Tissot’s L’Orpheline (Orphans, 1879), featuring Tissot’s mistress and muse, Kathleen Newton (1854 – 1882). L’Orpheline was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. Expected to bring $ 600,000- 800,000/£ 400,000- 530,000), the painting set a new record for a Tissot oil when sold for $ 2,700,000/£ 1,867,865 to art dealer David Mason, with MacConnal-Mason, a fourth generation gallery in St. James established in 1893. Mason was acting on behalf of musical composer Andrew Lloyd Webber (b. 1948), who in the next decade would collect some of Tissot’s best work – at very high prices.

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The Widower (Le veuf, c. 1877), by James Tissot. Oil on panel. 14 by 9 in. (35.56 by 22.86 cm) Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Still, there were some bargains to be found: Lloyd Webber purchased The Widower (c. 1887), a smaller replica of the original which Tissot exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877, at Sotheby’s, London in 1994 for $ 122,587/£ 75,000.

The Rivals (1878 – 1879), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 36.22 by 26.77 in. (92 by 68 cm). Private collection.

In October, 2014, Tissot’s The Rivals (I rivali, 1878–79) was sold at Casa d’Aste Pandolfini, Florence, Italy. Set in Tissot’s conservatory, it depicts Kathleen Newton cast as a young widow, crocheting while taking tea with two suitors, one middle-aged and one old. Tissot exhibited it with a number of other works at London’s Grosvenor Gallery in 1879, and that same year, it was shown at the Royal Manchester Institution’s Exhibition of Modern Paintings and Sculpture, priced at £400. It was purchased by John Polson, of Tranent and Thornly [who also owned Tissot’s A Portrait (1876, Tate, London)], and sold by his executors at Christie’s, London in 1911. It then belonged to Sir Edward James Harland (1831–1895), head of the Belfast shipbuilding firm of Harland and Wolff and sometime M.P. for North Belfast, of Glenfarne Hall, near Enniskillen, Ireland and Baroda House in Kensington Palace Gardens, London, where it was sold by his executors at Christie’s upon his widow’s death in 1912. Since 1913, The Rivals has been in private collections in Milan, beginning with the Ingegnoli Collection. It was sold by Paul Ingegnoli’s executors at Galleria Pesaro in 1933 and purchased by a Milanese private collector. It was displayed in public again only in Milan, at the Palazzo della Permanente, La Mostra Nazionale di Pittura, “L’Arte e il Convito,” in 1957. At the October 2014 sale, The Rivals was purchased for € 954,600 EUR (Premium) [$ 1,215,969/£ 753,715]. The Rivals, in pristine condition, was displayed at the Stair Sainty Gallery booth at TEFAF, the world’s leading art fair, in Maastricht, Netherlands, March 13-22, 2015.

Celebrities & Millionaires Vie for Tissot’s Paintings in the 1990s

James Tissot in the Andrew Lloyd Webber Collection

Tissot’s La Femme à Paris series

James Tissot in Mourning

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CH377762 If you do not have a Kindle e-reader, you may download free Kindle reading apps for PCs, Smartphones, tablets, and the Kindle Cloud Reader to read The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot. Read reviews.

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

James Tissot in Mourning

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “James Tissot in Mourning.” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2017/01/20/james-tissot-in-mourning/. <Date viewed.>

An aspect of the fashionable clothing of his day that James Tissot did not fail to capture in paint was mourning. Several of his pictures show mourning attire of the 1860s to the 1880s in great detail.

The five daughters of Queen Victoria in mourning for Prince Albert. March 1862. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

Wearing appropriate mourning attire was one of the many rituals surrounding death in Tissot’s era, particularly in Great Britain when Queen Victoria wore mourning for forty years following the death of her consort, Prince Albert.

Numerous etiquette manuals and popular journals laid out the strict and complicated etiquette of dress that demonstrated respect for the deceased, earned sympathy for the grieving, and often displayed wealth and social status. Different rules applied depending on the bereaved person’s relationship to the deceased person, from grandparents to cousins to servants.

The most stringent, and the most codified, rules governed the attire of widows. As sexually experienced women who were now single, it was crucial that they observe all proprieties. (1)

Advertising for Victorian mourning garb

Large wardrobes were necessary to outfit women for bereavements of up to two and a half years, and this was a lucrative niche for those in the trade, such as Jay’s of Regent Street, opened in 1841 as an establishment for mourning. (2) Peter Robertson founded a mourning warehouse in Regent Street in 1865, maintaining a wide inventory, executing special orders in a day, and even traveling to the countryside for fittings at no extra charge. In 1876, the firm introduced a style catalog from which customers could order ready-to-wear garments to be sent by mail-order. (3)

A widow’s first, or deepest mourning, was worn for a year and a day. Custom dictated every detail of clothing, and types of fabric to be worn, during this and the following period. For example, the bonnet for first mourning must have a veil hanging at the back, and a shorter veil worn over the face, and cambric handkerchiefs must have black borders. Second mourning was worn for twelve months, with complex instructions as to the gradual introduction of additional freedoms, such as wearing hats again. At the end of the second year, mourning could be put off entirely, but it was considered in better taste to wear half mourning for at least six months longer. (4)

A Widow (Une veuve, 1868), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 27 by 19.5 in. (68.5 by 49.5 cm). (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

In 1869, James Tissot exhibited A Widow (Une veuve, 1868) at the Salon in Paris. The low-cut, square neckline of this stylish young widow’s full-skirted black gown is filled in with a blouse of filmy black silk, trimmed at the round neckline, center front, shoulders and wrists with frothy ruffles in the same fabric. The set-in sleeves and long and full. The trained skirt’s high waist is tied with a wide sash and accented with a black rosette. The pleated flounce at the hem reveals her white, lace-edged petticoat, a black silk stocking, and a squared-toed high heel with its silk bow. Her brown hair is parted in the center, and braids behind each ear crown her head. Wearing black lace mitts as she dreamily pursues her sewing – while showing that glimpse of ankle so tantalizing to Victorian men – it is likely she can be induced to leave off her last months of mourning. The elderly chaperone is in mourning, while the little girl is not.

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The Empress Eugénie and the Prince Impérial in the Grounds at Camden Place, Chislehurst (c. 1874), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 50 by 60 in. (106.6 by 152.4 cm). Musee Nationale du Chateau de Compiegne, France. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Empress Eugénie in mourning for her son, 1880. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

Tissot’s double portrait The Empress Eugénie and the Prince Impérial in the Grounds at Camden Place, Chislehurst (c. 1874) depicts the exiled French Empress (1826 – 1920), living outside London after the collapse of the Second Empire, and her son, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, who would be killed in 1879, at age 23, in the Zulu War. The only child of Napoléon III of France, he was accepted to the Royal Military Academy, Woolwich, in 1872 and is pictured in the uniform of a Woolwich cadet. The Empress is in her first year of mourning following the death of her husband in January, 1873.

Her black gown consists of a high-necked, button-up bodice with long, tight-fitting, set-in sleeves over a white blouse, and a straight, trained skirt with a black draped tablier (apron) overskirt. Her round black cap, so like her son’s, is trimmed in white, and a long black veil trails from its back.

The Widower (Le veuf, 1876), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 116.3 by 75.5 cm. Art Gallery of New South Wales, Australia. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Tissot exhibited The Widower (1876) at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1877. He portrays this widower with a lumpy, crushed hat of soft felt, wearing a sack coat. The bereaved man appears so much sadder than if he were dressed in a dapper frock coat and top hat.

Orphans (L’Orpheline, 1879), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 85 by 43 in. (216 by 109.2 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Orphans (L’Orpheline, 1879), features Tissot’s mistress and muse, Kathleen Newton (1854 – 1882) and was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. Mrs. Newton’s form-fitting mourning gown was the very latest style – the new cuirasse bodice and Princess line seaming created by couturier Charles Worth. Fitted over a white blouse with lace showing at the wrists under the long, slim, set-in sleeves, it is a different style of gown altogether from previous Victorian dresses. It has no waist seam: the seams run continuously from the shoulder to the hem, and the shape is created by sewing long, fitted fabric pieces together. Note the center front of her gown, a vertical section of pleated bands. The Princess seam created a tall, slender look. It depended on the curaisse bodice, a tightly-laced, boned corset that encased the torso, waist, hips and thighs. The result was a dramatic narrowing of the silhouette of women’s fashion in the late 1870s.

Mrs. Newton wears black lace mitts, a peaked bonnet embellished with black feathers, and a heavy black scarf around her neck. She wears a corsage of lavender and white chrysanthemums, but no jewelry except for the wedding band visible on the third finger of her left hand. It is likely that she is being represented as a widow in her secondary mourning, as lavender was considered a color appropriate for that stage.

The little girl [modeled by Kathleen Newton’s niece, Lilian Hervey (1875 – 1952)] also wears mourning – though, oddly, she seems dressed for different weather entirely in her short-sleeved, button-down black dress over a white chemise. She has bare arms and legs and wears white socks with black strapped shoes.

The Rivals (I rivali, 1878-79), by James Tissot. Private Collection.

Tissot’s The Rivals (I rivali, 1878–79) is set in the conservatory of his home at 17 (now 44), Grove End Road in St. John’s Wood, London. It casts his mistress, young divorcée Kathleen Newton, as a young widow, crocheting while taking tea with two suitors, one middle-aged and one old. Mrs. Newton is wearing the same black gown she did in L’Orpheline (Orphans, 1879). In this picture, Tissot paints her so close to the end of her mourning that she is entertaining men – and so nonchalant about it that she slouches in her fur-lined, wicker armchair while focusing on her needlework!

Tissot exhibited this painting at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1879. Kathleen Newton died of tuberculosis on November 9, 1882, at age 28, at Tissot’s house with her sister, Polly Hervey, at her side (according to the death register). Tissot draped the coffin in purple velvet and prayed beside it for hours. Immediately after the funeral on November 14, at the Church of Our Lady in Lisson Grove, St. John’s Wood, Tissot abandoned his home and returned to Paris.

Sans dot (Without Dowry, 1883-85), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 58 by 41 in. (147.32 by 104.14 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Tissot exerted himself to re-establish his reputation in Paris, which he had fled following the bloody aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War in 1871, with a series of fifteen large-scale pictures called La Femme à Paris (The Parisian Woman). Painted between 1883 and 1885, they portrayed the fashionable parisienne in various incarnations using brighter, modern colors than he had in his previous work.

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Women’s mourning bonnet in hard crape, c. 1880. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

The elegant young widow in Sans dot (Without Dowry, 1883-85) takes the air in the gardens in Versailles wearing a buttoned-up, high-necked black bodice with three-quarter, eighteenth-century-style Sabot sleeves that fit tightly before flaring into a deep ruffle below the elbow. Black gloves cover her hands and forearms. She wears a black draped tablier (apron) overskirt over a straight, pleated underskirt in sable-colored silk. Her high-crowned, black straw bonnet features a large black bow over her fringe, echoed by a soft bow tied neatly under her chin. Because her bonnet is so elaborately beribboned and has no veil, we know she is past her first year of mourning (when the appropriate bonnet was simple, like the one shown at the right) and is now in secondary mourning. The widow maintains a wistful expression and a demure posture before her work basket and a book while her elderly chaperone, who is wearing mourning and a bonnet with a veil, is absorbed in the newspaper. She appears completely aware of her charms – and of the fact that her lack of a dowry seems unlikely to affect her ability to attract another husband.

James Tissot’s garden idyll & Kathleen Newton’s death

A visit to James Tissot’s house & Kathleen Newton’s grave

Tissot’s La Femme à Paris series

REFERENCE WORKS:

(1) Sidell, Misty White, “A time when the wrong outfit could lead to disgrace and scandal: New Costume Institute exhibit to explore the strict world of Victorian mourning fashions,” Daily Mail, (July 1, 2014); http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2677118/A-time-wrong-outfit-lead-disgrace-scandal-New-Costume-Institute-exhibit-explore-strict-world-Victorian-mourning-fashions.html (Accessed: 1/19/2017)

(2) “Victorian Mourning Etiquette,” http://www.tchevalier.com/fallingangels/bckgrnd/mourning/ (Accessed: 1/19/2017)

(3) Hansen, Viveka, “Jet & Dressed in Black – the Victorian Period (B 20),” TEXTILIS (October 12, 2016); https://textilis.net/ (Accessed: 1/19/2017)

(4) Robinson, Nugent. Collier’s Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information. New York: F. Collier, 1882. (Accessed: 1/19/2017)

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

NOTE: If you do not have a Kindle e-reader, you may download free Kindle reading apps for PCs, Smartphones, tablets, and the Kindle Cloud Reader to read The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot. Read reviews.

Tissot’s Study for the family of the Marquis de Miramon (1865)

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “Tissot’s Study for the family of the Marquis de Miramon (1865).” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/12/14/tissots-study-for-the-family-of-the-marquis-de-miramon-1865/. <Date viewed.>

James Tissot executed his oil paintings with meticulous attention to detail, a characteristic of his temperament as well as his academic training in Paris, and he often painted a small preparatory study to work out his composition, palette, and use of light.

In fact, when the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut acquired a small painting in 1941, thought to be the work of an Impressionist painter, it later was recognized as a study for Tissot’s monumental 1865 family portrait, “The Marquis and the Marquise de Miramon and their Children,” which had remained in the family until 2006. That year, it was acquired by the Musée d’Orsay, and the first time it was exhibited publicly since 1866 was with the blockbuster exhibition, Impressionism, Fashion & Modernity, which opened at the Musée d’Orsay, Paris, from September 25, 2012 to January 20, 2013, traveled to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York from February 26 through May 27 and closed at the Art Institute of Chicago from June 26 to September 22, 2013.

Tissot’s study has been displayed by the Wadsworth Atheneum only since the museum’s recent renovation.

Study for the Family of the Marquis de Miramon (1865), by James Tissot. Oil on paper adhered to panel. 13.25 by 16.5 in. (33.7 by 42 cm). The Ella Gallup Sumner and Mary Catlin Sumner Collection Fund. Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, CT. (Photo copyright Lucy Paquette, 2016).

The portrait depicts René de Cassagne de Beaufort, marquis de Miramon (1835 – 1882) and his wife, née Thérèse Feuillant (1836 – 1912), posing with their first two children, Geneviève (1863 – 1924) and Léon (1861 – 1884) on the terrace of the château de Paulhac in Auvergne.

A comparison of the study with the finished painting gives us insight into Tissot’s working methods.

Tissot, then 29 years old, made the study with a general idea of the composition, the setting, the poses and costumes of his subjects, and his palette of greys, blues, and white enlivened with touches of red.

In the study, as in the completed portrait, the tall and elegant Marquise stands on the left of the canvas holding her daughter, Geneviève, and the Marquis is seated to their right in a casual pose.

The most noticeable difference in the finished portrait is that it is considerable lighter, brighter and more lively than the study, which is overall quite dark and stilted. Tissot achieved this effect partly through depicting more open sky through the trees, especially in the center of the painting and behind the heads of the Marquise and Geneviève. Their two faces, turned toward the viewer, are now closer together, providing a highly lit focal point.

And though the Marquise wears a black bolero in the finished portrait, rather than the blue bodice in the study, Geneviève’s figure is much brighter, and the Marquise’s magnificent silk skirt glows and shimmers with light. Tissot decided to extend the final canvas out to the left to accommodate the full sweep of her train.

The Marquis’ dark brown lounge suit in the study is replaced with a lighter grey one — and the red stockings Tissot initially considered for color were replaced by tall black leather riding boots. Color instead is provided by the red flower blossoms at the center of the composition, and the tasteful pink rose in the Marquis’ lapel. Tissot exchanged the Marquis’ broad blue tie for a more subtle spot of a darker blue underscoring his change from a three-quarters view of his subject to a full face portrait. The crisp white cuffs of the Marquis’ shirt provide another brightening touch in the final composition.

As Tissot placed the Marquise, Geneviève, and the Marquis in his study, he clearly struggled with where to place the couple’s son, Léon. The study shows that he planned to paint Léon prominently in the center of the family, and initially, Léon stands in a studied pose reminiscent of an adult male in a formal eighteenth-century aristocratic portrait. However, this strikes a false note in a picture meant to be a modern, informal, English-style portrait of an affectionate family. Tissot also struggled with how to enliven the lower right corner of the composition. In the study, he fills that spot with a highly-patterned blanket and a bright red touch over a wooden ladder-back chair.

In the finished painting, Tissot solved both artistic challenges by placing Léon in the lower right corner — in the chair. The red diced hose that Léon wears in the study have been exchanged for black diced hose, and behind him is a bright red plaid blanket. Further visual interest is provided in that corner of the picture by the ornate table cropped at the extreme right edge.

The family’s large black dog has been relocated from its central position with Léon in the study to a more natural pose at Léon’s feet; Tissot used the dog, in the end, to enliven the central spot at the bottom of the canvas. In a decision that finally unifies the subjects in a pleasing composition, Tissot changed the Marquis’ pose so that his crossed legs lead the eye down his long black boots to the strong black diagonal of the reclining dog.

Léon’s pose is now more natural: he sits on his right leg while dangling his left one off the seat of the chair that he grasps with his hand. While his mother, sister and father gaze directly at the viewer, Léon is very much a little boy whose attention is elsewhere. The Marquis has now taken center place in the family group, and his figure is visually united with his wife’s by the halved pear, part of which is angled toward him while the knife handle is angled toward her.

The red touches that Tissot initially placed in the center and lower right of the composition still were used in the center and lower right in the finished portrait, but in different ways. And notice how the dog’s pink tongue provides the color between the two areas in both the study and the final painting.

Tissot’s study reveals the effort and creative decisions he made to produce one of his most polished and exquisite works.

His care with this composition, and his considerable technical skill in executing it, was reflected in all his work. The Marquis and the Marquise de Miramon and their children was exhibited in Paris, at the Cercle de l’Union Artistique, in 1866, and entered him into the lucrative market for Society portraiture after a decade of living and learning in the French capitol. Although at least one critic did not like the overall grey palette of this picture, and felt that the portrayal of the little boy lacked impact, the Marquis de Miramon next commissioned Tissot to paint an individual portrait of his beautiful wife – and, two years later, a group portrait with eleven of his fellow club members that provided an even greater compositional challenge: The Circle of the Rue Royale.

The Marquis and the Marquise de Miramon and their Children (1865), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 69 11/16 by 85 7/16 in. (177 by 217 cm). Musée d’Orsay, Paris (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

From Princess to Plutocrat: Tissot’s Patrons

Tissot in the new millenium: Museum Acquisitions

A spotlight on Tissot at the Met’s “Impressionism, Fashion, and Modernity”

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Aristocrats (1865 – 1868)

James Tissot’s Fashion Plates (1864-1878): A Guest Post for Mimi Matthews by Lucy Paquette

CH377762

If you do not have a Kindle e-reader, you may download free Kindle reading apps for PCs, Smartphones, tablets, and the Kindle Cloud Reader to read The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot. Read reviews.

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

A Closer Look: The Circus Lover (The Amateur Circus), by James Tissot

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. A Closer Look: The Circus Lover (The Amateur Circus), by James Tissot. The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/11/21/a-closer-look-the-circus-lover-the-amateur-circus-by-james-tissot/. <Date viewed.>

The Circus Lover, one of fifteen oil paintings in James Tissot’s series of contemporary life called “La femme à Paris” (“Women of Paris”), was first exhibited in Paris in 1885 as Les femmes de sport and was displayed in London in 1886 as The Amateur Circus.

Women of Paris: The Circus Lover (also known as The Amateur Circus, 1885), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 58 by 40 in. (147.3 by 101.6 cm). Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The setting for The Circus Lover is the Molier Circus in Paris, a “high-life circus” opened in 1880 in which the amateur performers were members of the aristocracy. The London exhibition catalogue denigrated the events as “fancies of a bored generation.” The man on the trapeze wearing red is the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, one of the oldest titles of the French nobility. People of beauty and fashion attended the circus and mingled with the performers during the interval.

The Circus Lover was sold by Gerald M. Fitzgerald at Christie’s, London in mid-1957 to the Marlborough Fine Art Gallery for $ 3,219 USD/£ 1,150 GBP. In early 1958, The Circus Lover was purchased from the Marlborough Fine Art by the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts for $ 5,000 as Amateur Circus.

The Circus Lover was included in the blockbuster exhibition, “Impressionism, Fashion, & Modernity,” in Paris, New York and Chicago, and I saw it then. But I recently had a chance to study it at length in Boston, and I have to say, it is an odd picture. It’s garish and crammed with characters and mini-dramas, but it is amusing and definitely compelling. Here are some close-ups I took for those of you who can’t get to the Museum of Fine Arts to see Tissot’s beautifully painted details.

The face makeup and expression on the clown with the Union Jack costume are denoted with thick smudges of paint, while the woman’s bracelet, the dainty edging of her glove, and the fabric of her gown are rendered in finer strokes.

The blonde in the pink gown pulls us into the scene with her direct gaze. Her gown, with its lacy neckline and green accents, is skillfully observed. Behind her, fashionable men in silk top hats are depicted as individuals with distinctive features, and they are alive and busily interacting with each other.

The women sitting in the tier above them are also depicted as individuals, each with very different features, expressions, and ensembles. This photo also shows two of my favorite details – the lively profiles of the woman and the man at the right.

Notice the contrasting textures of the man’s gleaming silk top hat, his soft sideburns, and the wrinkled fabric of his coat. And, above him, a woman whose face is obscured wears an elegant straw hat trimmed in black ribbons and profuse bows. The green patterned fabric of her gown distinguishes her figure from the man, the woman in front of her in the brown patterned dress, and the woman in pink.

The acrobat in blue sits on the trapeze on his thighs rather than his bottom – look how the bar of the swing presses into his flesh. His crossed legs form an inverted triangle, which frames the face of the lady in the red hat. And, on the left, look at the comical expressions on the guards at the entrance to the ring.

The old gent with the white whiskers seems to disapprove of what he sees, but the younger men on the right are clearly amused by something, as are at least two of the ladies seated below them. The two brown gowns are the closest thing to duplicate styles in the whole painting – notice how very different each of the women’s hats are.

The acrobat in red – the Duc de la Rochefoucauld – is sitting directly on his buttocks, which hang rather amusingly over the heads of two bored gentlemen seen behind him.

The Duc de la Rochefoucauld was said to have “the biceps of Hercules,” and his red and white shoes are striking. But in the whole scene, the only person who appears to be looking at him is the lady with the large red fan.

These men in the uppermost tier appear to be checking out the fashionable beauties seated immediately below them, while the man with the opera glasses seems to be focused on the woman in the ivory-colored bonnet seen just behind the Duc de la Rochefoucauld’s right foot.

I love the expressions on the faces of these two friends. They are not impressed. Head to head with impassivity, they are either exchanging acerbic comments on the whole affair, or on the women near them – or they just want to get out of there!

You can feel the heat and the sense of the crowd pressing on you, in all its boredom and restlessness, as audience members anticipate mingling during – or after – the interval.

Though Tissot’s “Women of Paris” series did not meet with critical or popular acclaim, The Circus Lover is yet another of his paintings that opened a window into his world and let posterity in.

Related posts:

Tissot’s La Femme à Paris series

A Closer Look at Tissot’s “The Ladies of the Chariots”

A Closer Look at Tissot’s “The Artists’ Wives”

Tissot in the U.S.: New England

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

A Closer Look at Tissot’s “The Fan”

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. A Closer Look at Tissot’s “The Fan”. The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/11/07/a-closer-look-at-tissots-the-fan/. <Date viewed.>

James Tissot painted The Fan about 1875 in London, where he had been living in the four years after the Franco-Prussian War and the Paris Commune.

Following the bloody end to the Commune, Tissot arrived in London in May or June, 1871, with only a hundred francs. By 1873, he was living in a comfortable suburban home at 17 (now 44) Grove End Road in St. John’s Wood, where he built an extension with a studio and conservatory in 1875 that doubled the size of the house.

The Fan (c. 1875), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 15 by 19 in. (38.10 by 48.26 cm). Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, Hartford, Connecticut. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

In his new conservatory, Tissot painted some of his loveliest images, including The Fan, which celebrates the continuing fascination with japonisme during this era. An auburn-haired beauty wearing a loose, pale yellow dressing gown leans against an elegant length of embroidered silk draped over the back of a large upholstered armchair as she fans herself in a conservatory. Behind her is an exuberant russet-colored plant in a cloisonné jardinière, perched on an Oriental table of carved rosewood, and the breezy fronds of a potted palm. Her gown is trimmed in white pleated ruffles, and she wears the black velvet ribbon around her neck that was de rigueur for fashionable women in 1875. A yellow flower dangles from her thick, coiled braids, echoing the golden motifs in the Japanese cloth. The aqua-colored fan painted with Oriental images is crisp and cool, while that bright red edge on the embroidery accents the entire picture as if underscoring the heat. The painting is sheer beauty; there is no narrative nor, as in most of Tissot’s paintings, any psychological tension. Yet it is an arresting image.

The Fan was sold at Sotheby’s, London in 1982 for $ 73,974/£ 42,000 to Charles Jerdein (1916 – 1999). Jerdein was the trainer who officially received the credit when thoroughbred Gilles de Retz landed the 2,000 Guineas in 1956; the Jockey Club did not recognize the female trainer, Helen Johnson-Houghton. Jerdein left Mrs. Johnson-Houghton’s operation that year, trained on his own for a short time, then concentrated on his business as an art dealer in London, though he occasionally had a horse in training in Newmarket. By the early 1960s, Jerdein had pioneered the market for paintings by James Tissot’s friend, the Dutch-born Victorian painter Sir Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836 – 1912), before Alma-Tadema’s name became associated with the American television personality who collected his work, Allen Funt of “Candid Camera.”

Jerdein sold The Fan to the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, Connecticut.

The Wadsworth Atheneum was founded in 1842 by Daniel Wadsworth (1771–1848), an artistic member of an old and wealthy family.

Now comprising five connected buildings, the Wadsworth began in the distinctive Gothic Revival building of 1844, designed by Ithiel Town and Alexander Jackson Davis.

It is the largest art museum in the state and is noted for its collections of European Baroque art, French and American Impressionist paintings, Hudson River School landscapes and much more – including Tissot’s wonderful study for his elegant The Marquis and the Marquise de Miramon and their Children, a masterpiece purchased from the family by the Musée d’Orsay in 2006.

I’ve tried to see The Fan for the past few years, but the museum was undergoing renovations.

In 2013, The Fan was in the Mississippi Museum of Art’s “Old Masters to Monet” exhibition, one of fifty master works of French art spanning three centuries from the Wadsworth’s collection. After that and through the first two months of 2014, The Fan was on display at the Denver Art Museum’s exhibition, “Court to Café: Three Centuries of French Masterworks from the Wadsworth Atheneum.”

Finally, I was able to see this painting, and it is lush and lovely. See it if you can, but if you can’t manage the trip, here are some close-up photos for you to enjoy.

James Tissot’s brilliant marketing tool, 1869

Tissot in the Conservatory

Tissot in the U.S.: New England

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

James Tissot’s Fashion Plates (1864-1878): A Guest Post for Mimi Matthews by Lucy Paquette

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “James Tissot’s Fashion Plates (1864-1878): A Guest Post for Mimi Matthews by Lucy Paquette.” https://www.mimimatthews.com/2016/10/10/james-tissots-fashion-plates-1864-1878-a-guest-post-by-lucy-paquette/. <Date viewed.>

James Tissot, In_the_conservatory, wikimedia

In the Conservatory (Rivals), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 38.4 by 51.1 cm. (Image: Wikimedia via Christie’s)

The popular and informative 19th century romance, literature, and history blogger, author Mimi Matthews, features a guest post from me this week, James Tissot’s Fashion Plates (1864-1878): A Guest Post by Lucy Paquette.

Mimi’s posts, always so well-researched and entertaining, discuss numerous subjects relevant to the fashions that James Tissot painted in such stunning detail. You can find them at 19th Century Fashion & Beauty, and they include:

Japonism: The Japanese Influence on Victorian Fashion

The 1860s in Fashionable Gowns: A Visual Guide to the Decade

The 1870s in Fashionable Gowns: A Visual Guide to the Decade

The 1880s in Fashionable Gowns: A Visual Guide to the Decade

The Trouble with Bustles: Victorian Fashion in the 19th Century News

The 19^th Century Wire Cage Crinoline

My guest post on Mimi’s blog is just one way to celebrate James Tissot’s 180th birthday on October 15, 2016. I also will have the opportunity to visit two more of Tissot’s oil paintings that I have never seen close up.

I hope you will celebrate James Tissot’s life and work by reading my novel, THE HAMMOCK: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot.*

THE HAMMOCK is the story of ten remarkable years in the life of James Tissot (1836 – 1902), who rebuilt – and then lost – his reputation in London.

By 1870, at age 34, he had become a multi-millionaire celebrity with an opulent new Parisian villa and studio among aristocratic neighbors near the Arc de Triomphe. Handsome and charming, his friends included the painters James McNeill Whistler, Edgar Degas, Édouard Manet, Lawrence Alma-Tadema and John Everett Millais. When the Prussians attacked Paris that year, Tissot became a sharpshooter in the artists’ brigade defending the besieged capital. After a bloody Communist rebellion, fought virtually at the doorstep of his mansion, he fled to London.

Amid suspicions that he was a Communist, he quickly rebuilt his brilliant career among the Industrial Age’s nouveaux riches. In 1876, Tissot took a young Irish divorcée as his mistress and muse. He referred to her only as “La Mystérieuse” and withdrew from Society to paint her in his garden paradise in the suburbs. Within three years, his pictures had pushed the boundaries of Victorian morality, and the British art establishment turned against him. In a debacle of friendship, fame and loss, his artistic heyday of painting a decade of glamour and leisure in London came to an end. Celebrated during his lifetime, Tissot has been nearly forgotten by all but art historians.

THE HAMMOCK is a psychological portrait, exploring the forces that unwound the career of this complex man. Based on contemporary sources, the novel brings Tissot’s world alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

ISBN: 978-0-615-68267-9 (ePub)

See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

View Lucy Paquette’s videos:

“The Strange Career of James Tissot” (2:33 min.)

“Louise Jopling and James Tissot” (2:42 min.)

Take Lucy Paquette’s BuzzFeed Personality Quiz,

Which Female Victorian Artist Are You?

*Don’t own a Kindle? Amazon.com has free Kindle reading apps!

Download free Kindle reading apps for:

Kindle Cloud Reader Read instantly in your browser

Smartphones iPhone & iPod touch Android Windows Phone 7 BlackBerry

Computers Mac Windows 8 Windows 7, XP & Vista

Tablets iPad Android Tablet Windows 8

James Tissot’s Cloisonné

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “James Tissot’s Cloisonné.” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/james-tissots-cloisonne/. <Date viewed.>

James Tissot’s meticulous technical skills extended beyond oil painting, watercolor, pastels, and engraving to cloisonné.

Cloisonné is an enameling technique in which delicate metal strips or wires are soldered to a metal surface to outline intricate designs, and the spaces (cloisons in French) are filled with pastes made of ground colored glass. The object is fired in a kiln, the paste becomes enamel, and the piece is ground smooth and polished until glossy.

Cloisonné rings exist from 13th century BC Mycenaean Greece, and cloisonné enameling was widespread in the Byzantine Empire from the 10th to the 12th century.

The earliest Chinese cloisonné pieces were made during the Xuande period (1426–1436), but the cloisonné enamel technique was likely introduced into China during the late Mongol Yuan dynasty (1279–1368). From that time through the early Ming dynasty (1368–1644), cloisonné enamel pieces were primarily intended for ritual use in Buddhist temples. During the second half of the eighteenth century, imperial workshops were established within the Forbidden City, and there were numerous commissions of cloisonné enamels for the imperial palaces and private residences.

Meanwhile, with the signing of the first commercial treaty between Japan and America in 1854, more than 200 years of Japanese seclusion came to an end. In Paris, a host of import shops cropped up. J.G. Houssaye’s À la porte chinoise (At the Chinese Gate) was established on rue Vivienne by 1855, and by 1856, M. Decelle had opened L’Empire Céleste (The Celestial Empire) there. Houssaye later opened Au Céleste Empire on rue Saint-Marc.

During the Second Opium War in 1860, the dazzling Summer Palace in Beijing – the Emperor’s favorite residence, built between 1750 and 1764 – was looted and burned to the ground by British and French troops. Treasures from the palace arrived in Britain and France along with all manner of exotic porcelains, engravings, lacquer ware, silks, scrolls, screens, fans and trinkets from the Far East.

In 1862, Madame Desoye, who with her husband had lived for many years in Japan, opened an import shop, La Jonque Chinoise (The Chinese Junk) at 220 rue de Rivoli, near the Louvre. Among her customers were Tissot, Manet, Degas, Whistler, and Sarah Bernhardt. So novel was the art of East Asia that the distinction between Japanese and Chinese traditions was blurred into the catch-all term, Oriental.

Cloisonné became popular throughout Europe, especially in France, sparking Chinese production during the reign of the Guangxu emperor (1875–1909). In Japan, cloisonné was popular during the Tokugawa (1603–1868) and Meiji (1868–1912) periods.

Lucien Falize (1839 – 1897) a French goldsmith, visited the International Exhibition in London in 1862 and saw the first display of Oriental works of art at the Japanese Pavilion – the collection of exotic treasures owned by the retired first British Minister to Japan, Sir Rutherford Alcock (1809-1897). In 1867, Falize saw the display of cloisonné enameled objects by the celebrated French jeweler and silversmith firm, Christofle, at the Expositon Universelle in Paris. Falize’s firm began to produce cloisonné jewelry.

Firm of Lucien Falize

Christofle & Cie

Le rendez-vous (c. 1867), by James Tissot. Oil on panel, 20 by 14 in. (50.80 by 35.56 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikipaintings.org)

Tissot exhibited Le rendez-vous at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1867. Notice the cloisonné vases and pots clustered at the bottom right.

By about 1869, James Tissot’s new studio, on the most prestigious new thoroughfare in Paris, the avenue de l’Impératrice (Empress Avenue, now avenue Foch), had become a showcase for his renowned collection of Japanese art, and a landmark to see when touring Paris. Tissot’s villa provided the lavish interiors filled with Oriental carpets, furniture, fabrics, carvings, vases and wall hangings that he used in his paintings.

Jeunes femmes regardant des objects japonais, by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 24 by 19 in. (60.96 by 48.26 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

Jeunes femmes regardant des objects japonais (Young Women Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas, 24 by 19 in. (60.96 by 48.26 cm). Private Collection. (Photo: Wikipedia.org)

But Tissot fled Paris in the aftermath of the Franco-Prussian War and the bloody Commune in 1871, and he established himself in the competitive London art market. By 1876, Tissot had earned great wealth and lived in relative seclusion with his mistress and muse, young divorcée Kathleen Newton.

In 1878, Lucien Falize won a Grand Prize and received the Legion of Honor for the work he exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris. Other illustrious artists, such as the celebrated bronze founder Ferdinand Barbédienne (1810 – 1892) produced cloisonné enamels as well.

In the late 1870s, Tissot began to produce cloisonné enamels. La Fortune (Fortune, c. 1878-1882), on display at the Musée des Arts Décoratifs in Paris, is his largest piece. A design for a fountain or a monument, it comprises patinated bronze, silver bronze, gilt bronze, cloisonné enamel, silver, and glass, on a walnut base.

La Fortune (Fortune, c. 1878-1882), by James Tissot. Height: 127 cm, Diameter: 65 cm

La Fortune (Fortune, c. 1878-1882), by James Tissot. Patinated bronze, silver bronze, gilt bronze, cloisonné enamel, silver, and glass, on a walnut base. Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Around 1880 or 1882, Tissot produced an oval jardinière (a planter), Lake and Sea, composed of copper panels decorated in cloisonné enamel with a bronze frame and gilt-bronze mounts. It was based on a rare Ming gilt and enamel jardinière that Tissot acquired for his collection around 1870. The Chinese piece, a basin with pastoral and mountain landscapes on its sides, was among the treasures looted from the Summer Palace in 1860. It inspired Tissot to create the jardinière with Art Nouveau-like nude women seated on dragon heads, in place of the pair of lion-shaped handles on the original.

Lake and Sea (c. 1880-1882), by James Tissot. Coisonné enamel, bronze frame with gilt-bronze mounts. 240 by 620 by 310 mm. Royal Pavilion and Museums, Brighton, UK

Tissot exhibited this jardinière with over twenty pieces of cloisonné enamel including a large sculpture, vases, jardinières, trays, teapots, plaques and trial pieces at the Dudley Gallery, in London in 1882. They did not receive much acclaim, and none sold.

Children in a Garden (c. 1882), by James Tissot. Cloisonné enamel on copper (25 by 10 cm). Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Paris.

Mrs. Newton with a Parasol (1879), by James Tissot. (Photo: Wikiart.org)

Note the similarity of the shape of Tissot’s vase, Children in a Garden, compared to the vase he showcased on the table in Jeunes femmes regardant des objects japonais (Young Women Looking at Japanese Objects, 1869), above. The images he used to decorate his modernized vase were based on his paintings of the period, such as Mrs. Newton with a Parasol (1879).

When Kathleen Newton died of tuberculosis on November 9, 1882, Tissot was distraught. Immediately after the funeral on November 14, at the Church of Our Lady in Lisson Grove, St. John’s Wood, he returned to Paris.

He took his paintings and the entire cloisonné collection he had exhibited at the Dudley Gallery, but he left all his paints and art supplies in trays in the studio, and the pots containing the materials for his cloisonné work were left in the basement.

Tissot exhibited his cloisonné collection twice in Paris: in March, 1883 at the Palais de l’Industrie, and again from April to June, 1885 at the Galerie Sedelmeyer. He continued to produce more pieces, but all of them remained in his possession. After his death, some of his cloisonné enamels were sold and some were kept by family members.

On top of the world: Tissot, Millais & Alma-Tadema in 1867

“Chi-so”: Tissot teaches a brother of Japan’s last Shogun, 1868

James Tissot’s brilliant marketing tool, 1869

James Tissot’s garden idyll & Kathleen Newton’s death

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Gentlemen & Rogues (1865 – 1879)

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Gentlemen & Rogues (1865 – 1879).” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/08/11/masculine-fashion-by-james-tissot-gentlemen-rogues-1865-1879/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true. <Date viewed.>

James Tissot, often described as a dandy, seems to have dressed flamboyantly as a young art student in Paris and early in his career.

Self portrait, c.1865 (oil on panel), by James Tissot. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA, USA. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library for use in "The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot" by Lucy Paquette, © 2012.

Self portrait (c. 1865), by James Tissot. Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA, USA. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library for use in “The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot” by Lucy Paquette, © 2012.

After Tissot found success (in the early 1860s), he began to present himself as a gentleman of business: he wore a frock coat, and there is no indication that he tried to compete with the stylish aristocrats he painted, even as he earned great wealth in his career. In this image, he wears a heavy, tan overcoat with his black frock coat, a cream-colored, high-cut waistcoat, a white shirt with a stand-up collar and notched cuffs, black cuff links, and a plain black tie.

James Tissot (c. 1867-68), by Edgar Degas. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

Here is Tissot a few years later, in a portrait by Edgar Degas, and while he is well-dressed, he is not wearing anything flashy or trendy. He wears a black frock coat over a dark grey waistcoat and white shirt, with a black cravat, full-cut light grey trousers and black leather half-boots. His black top hat and satin-lined cape are on the table behind him, as if he might be prepared for an evening at the Opera or the theater.

Whether James Tissot was a gentleman or a rogue is debatable. He seems to have fought, however briefly, for the radical Paris Commune in the spring of 1871, before he relocated to London and soon took a young divorcée as his mistress. Though he seems to have tried to help his struggling painter friends, he accumulated great wealth and ended up being considered a rogue by Degas as well as James Whistler and, at times, Berthe Morisot.

Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue, 1st Baron Carlingford (1823-1898), 1871, by James Tissot (Photo credit: Wikipedia.org)

By all accounts, Chichester Parkinson-Fortescue, 1st Baron Carlingford (1823-1898) was a thorough gentleman. He was a politically ambitious Irishman and Liberal MP for County Louth from 1847 to 1868. He became a junior lord of the treasury in 1854, and in 1863, he married the beautiful, virtuous and politically influential Society hostess Frances, Countess Waldegrave (1821 – 1879). Fortescue held minor offices in the Liberal administrations until he was made Chief Secretary for Ireland under Lord Russell from 1865 through 1866, and again under Gladstone from 1868 to 1870. From 1871 to 1874, Chichester Fortescue was President of the Board of Trade.

He was described as pedantic but with a fine intellect. In 1853-54, when Fortescue was a bachelor, John Ruskin often left him alone with his young wife Effie, whom he admired and who apparently confided in him. Fortescue would spend a decade in love with Lady Waldegrave before her elderly husband died; she chose him out of the three or four men who wished to marry her. They were very happy together, as he helped her become more educated, and she used her fortune, charm, and hospitality to further his career. Queen Victoria invited the couple to dine with her at Windsor; she enjoyed Lady Waldegrave’s vivacity and appreciated Fortescue’s pleasant and agreeable manner and gentle voice. He was a diffident man who detested all card games and could only relax in the company of Bohemian types like Edward Lear.

In 1871 Tissot painted Fortescue wearing a black frock coat and full-cut fawn-colored trousers with an elegant white shawl-colored waistcoat, a white shirt with a stand-up collar, and a black tie folded over in a single, loose knot accented with a pearl tie tack. His black leather half-boots shine.

Gentleman in a Railway Carriage (1872), by James Tissot. The Worcester Art Museum, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

This elegant man of business, with his neatly trimmed mustache and beard, spares us a glance as he checks his pocket watch. He is dressed in the latest fashion – a lounge suit: his sack coat, waistcoat, and trousers all are cut from the same fabric. This style was introduced in the 1860s for comfort in the domestic sphere; Tissot’s painting shows that by this date, it was appropriate to wear it in public. The light brown wool is a confident choice that would have set this gentleman apart from the sea of colleagues in black frock coats and also makes the top-stitched edging stand out. His crimson tie and commodious fur-trimmed black overcoat are further evidence that he is a flashy and very successful, individual. Imagine what a figure he’ll cut when he alights from the carriage, wearing the black top hat now at his side, and those white kid gloves, perhaps with the boiled wool blanket folded over his arm as he continues to his destination.

On the Thames (1876), by James Tissot. Oil on canvas; 28.5 by 46.5 in. (72.5 by 118 cm). Hepworth Wakefield Art Gallery, Wakefield, UK. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library for use in “The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot” by Lucy Paquette, © 2012.

On the Thames (1876), by James Tissot. Hepworth Wakefield Art Gallery, Wakefield, UK. Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library for use in “The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot” by Lucy Paquette, © 2012.

The Victorians immediately decided this image of a handsome man on an outing with two beautiful women was “More French, shall we say, than English?” Unless the women are the sisters of this junior officer, we might be right to guess that carting them off with a picnic hamper and three bottles of champagne makes him a rogue. He is not in uniform, but wears his black-and-gold naval cap with a loose, thigh-length, single-breasted black wool coat that has wide lapels and upper sleeves, and side vents. He sports off-white trousers with loosely turned-up cuffs, blue socks, and laced, tan-and-white leather spectator shoes with a low heel. Incidentally, Tissot featured the exact same shoes in The Return from the Boating Trip (1873), The Ball on Shipboard (c. 1874), Quarreling (c. 1874-75), and Holyday (c. 1876). Perhaps they were studio props, and certainly they are of more visual interest than the plain black half-boots popular with men at that time.

Algernon Moses Marsden (1877), by James Tissot. Private collection. (Photo credit: Wikimedia.org)

Algernon Moses Marsden (1847 – 1920) was no gentleman.

His father, Isaac Moses (1809 – 1884), owned the Ready-Made Clothing Emporium at Aldgate, and by the time Algernon was 10 years old, the family lived in a grand new house at 23 Kensington Palace Gardens with a bow-fronted ballroom at the back. At 24, Algernon married, but rather than join the family business, he established himself as a picture dealer in St. James’s. In an 1872 trade directory, his residence is listed as Bayswater, a suburb west of London. He may have sold Tissot’s In the Conservatory (Rivals, c. 1875) [see For sale: In the Conservatory (Rivals), c. 1875, by James Tissot], and Marguerite in Church (c. 1860) around 1876, the year he sold William Holman Hunt’s 1866 Il Dolce far Niente through Christie’s, London.

Algernon Marsden lived high and went bankrupt by the age of 34; his debts were settled by his father. Algernon and his wife now resided in Kensington with five young daughters, plus Algernon’s 23-year-old niece, and five servants. When his father died in 1884, he disinherited Algernon in his Will but provided legacies for his wife and children.

In bankruptcy court again in 1887, at 40, Algernon said that when money came in, he “got rid of it” by gambling, particularly at the racetrack, but also at Eastbourne, a fashionable resort. By age 44, he, his wife, nine daughters and one son had moved to South Kensington. Bankrupt for at least the third time, Algernon, at age 54, abandoned his wife and ten children and fled to the United States with another woman in 1901. In 1912, The Times of London reported that Algernon Moses Marsden was bankrupt, but he was living in New York, where he died at the age of 72 on January 23, 1920.

Tissot captured this consummate rogue at age 30, wearing an embellished smoking jacket, a crisp, wing-collared white shirt, and a shining gold ring on his left hand.

The Rivals (I rivali, 1878–79), by James Tissot. Private collection.

There’s no telling if these gentlemen are rogues. Tissot’s The Rivals (I rivali, 1878–79) is set in the conservatory of his home in St. John’s Wood, London. It casts his mistress, Kathleen Newton, as a young widow, crocheting while taking tea with two suitors, one middle-aged and one old. The haughty-looking younger man wears a black sack coat over a white shirt with a stand-up collar, a dark tie, and fawn-colored trousers. The older man, still wearing his gloves, leans forward earnestly in his fully-buttoned, double-breasted black sack coat. Perhaps due his girth, his white waistcoat lines the coat rather awkwardly. His dark blue tie is quite wide, and he wears dark grey trousers and an oddly dainty white boutonnière. Incidentally, while most men of this era simply folded their ties over in a single, loose knot, this man has fastened his with a four-in-hand knot.

The Terrace of the Trafalgar Tavern, Greenwich, London, by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikiart.org)

We can’t suppose these two men are rogues, just because they seem ungentlemanly enough not to interact with the two women in their party. As usual, Tissot depicts an enigmatic situation: these individuals all are waiting for something. The man with the white whiskers and extraordinary matching eyebrows wears a tall grey top hat with a wide black band, which is echoed by his black cravat. He pairs his black frock coat with tan trousers and brown kid gloves. The other man appears to be wearing a black sack coat over his tan trousers. He wears neither hat nor gloves, and shows a bit of an attitude, the way he sits astride the carved chair. Perhaps the two young women are content, not having to converse with the stuffy gentleman nor the unconventional one! Note that Tissot painted this image in 1878, and the lounge suit is not yet so common that either of his male subjects wears it.

Going to Business (c. 1879), by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

In this painting, the elderly, wealthy businessman is dressed conservatively in a black frock coat with a starched white shirt front, black cravat, and a black top hat. Victorian viewers snickered that he was off to visit his mistress. Gentleman or rogue?

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Officers, soldiers & sailors (1868 – 1883/85)

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: The Casual Male (1871 – 1878)

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Sportsmen & Servants (1874 – 1885)

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Sportsmen & Servants (1874 – 1885)

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Sportsmen & Servants (1874 – 1885).” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/07/27/masculine-fashion-by-james-tissot-sportsmen-servants-1874-1885/. <Date viewed.>

Not every man that Tissot painted was an exemplar of high style; he depicted a whole cast of supporting players to his aristocrats, military figures, and fashionable males.

Still on Top (c. 1874), by James Tissot. Auckland Art Gallery Toi o Tāmaki, New Zealand. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The elderly male servant in Still on Top (c. 1874) wears a red liberty cap, a revolutionary symbol in France. Tissot painted this scene only three years after he had fled Paris – under some suspicion – during the French government’s suppression of the radical Paris Commune. It was a daring picture for an apparent French political refugee of the time, remaking his career in England. One has to wonder if many English servants of the day wore this style cap – or if its appearance in this work is a painterly conceit of Tissot’s. The man’s ensemble seems contrived to blend with the flags before him – his red shirt, blue long-sleeved sweater, and white canvas coveralls. And yet, because Tissot’s habit was faithfully to record the fashions of the time, we can infer the essential accuracy of the type of clothes this man would wear – i.e. the coveralls and the black leather boots with a medium heel.

Sur la Tamise (Return from Henley, also known as On the Thames, c. 1874), by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikipaintings.org)

These hardy men wear what we now call Henley shirts – a collarless, pullover shirt with a placket, the traditional uniform of rowers in the town of Henley-on-Thames. Their caps have black, blue and white stripes. Both the shirts and the trousers would have been cotton at this time.

Holyday (c. 1876), by James Tissot. Tate Britain, London.. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The cricketers in Holyday (c. 1876), in their black, red, and gold caps, are members of the famous I Zingari cricket club (which still exists, and is one of the oldest amateur cricket clubs), which played at Lord’s Cricket Ground near Tissot’s house at 17 Grove End Road, St John’s Wood, London. Incidentally, the cap colors are based on the motto, “Out of darkness, through fire, into light,” and the gold is always at the top. The men wear buff-colored lounge suits – sack coats paired with trousers cut from the same fabric, considered a casual look. The young man reclining by the ornamental pool has a red carnation boutonnière, and a large ivory-colored scarf loosely knotted at the neck of his white shirt. He wears tan and white laced spectator shoes with a low heel, just like the ones worn by the men Tissot painted in The Return from the Boating Trip (1873) and Quarreling (c. 1874-75) [see Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: The Casual Male (1871 – 1878)].

The Warrior’s Daughter (A Convalescent, c. 1878), by James Tissot. Manchester Art Gallery, U.K. (Photo: Wikiart.org).

In The Warrior’s Daughter (A Convalescent, c. 1878, the servant pushing the wealthy, ailing gent in the bath chair is, in classic supporting player fashion, dressed to recede behind the painting’s stars. The servant’s rumpled brown coat, waistcoat, and trousers are relieved only by a white-spotted black scarf at his throat, and his unusually high-crowned brown hat with its wide maroon band halfway up. Also somewhat incongruous is the high polish on his black leather shoes.

The Letter (c. 1878), by James Tissot. National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, Ontario. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The elegant manservant in the background of The Letter (c. 1878) wears livery of a black morning coat over a white shirt with a high, stand-up collar and a white tie. His tight black knee breeches blend into his black stockings and black leather shoes, which have no heels – surely allowing discreet attendance.

The Ferry (c. 1879), by James TIssot. Private Collection.

In The Ferry (. 1879), Tissot contrasts the middle-class gentleman with the ferryman. The passenger is hunched under an umbrella in his black bowler hat, black sack coat, pristine white shirt with a stand-up collar, and a tie, kid gloves and trousers in a matching light brown hue, along with black leather shoes and white spats. The supremely capable ferryman steers with glove-less hands and stays warm in his heavy black wool pea coat and dark woolen trousers. He has a natty white-and-black checked scarf at his throat and a Russian fur ushanka hat with the flaps tied up. Incidentally, Tissot’s subversive streak is evident in this painting, as few painters of the time depicted members of the middle-class as less competent than an individual below them on the social scale.

Women of Paris: The Circus Lover (also known as Amateur Circus, 1885), by James Tissot. Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, U.S.A. (Photo: Wikipaintings.org)

The setting for Women of Paris: The Circus Lover (also known as Les femmes de sport, 1885) is the Molier Circus in Paris, a “high-life circus” in which the amateur performers were members of the aristocracy. The man on the trapeze wearing red is the Duc de la Rochefoucauld, one of the oldest titles of the French nobility; he was said to have “the biceps of Hercules.” Both the Duc and the man on the other trapeze wear flesh-colored leotards covering their chests, arms and legs, with brightly-colored athletic costumes, black leather belts, and colorful, laced leather athletic shoes without heels.

People of beauty and fashion attended the circus and mingled with the performers during the interval; note that the men in the audience wear gleaming silk top hats and morning coats over white shirts with stand-up collars.

Tissot’s work depicts the dress of a broad array of characters in the drama of his era, providing us with a window into his world.

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Officers, soldiers & sailors (1868 – 1883/85)

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: The Casual Male (1871 – 1878)

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: The Casual Male (1871 – 1878)

To cite this article: Paquette, Lucy. “Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: The Casual Male (1871 – 1878).” The Hammock. https://thehammocknovel.wordpress.com/2016/07/13/masculine-fashion-by-james-tissot-the-casual-male-1871-1878/. <Date viewed.>

By the 1870s, fashions for Victorian men were transitioning toward styles familiar to us today. The ubiquitous, long and skirted black frock coat, and the morning coat (cut away to feature tails only), while still very much de rigueur for business, gradually were being supplanted by trendy styles. The sack coat (a loosely-cut, thigh-length coat with no waist seam) and the lounge suit (in which the sack coat and trousers were cut from the same fabric), would become the men’s business suit of our modern age. Ankle boots and laced shoes had been replacing full boots since 1850. And in this decade, the straw boater hat was adopted by rowing enthusiasts for summer – as depicted by Impressionist painters in France.

The elegant gentlemen of the 1870s incorporated the latest styles in dressing for leisure time, and Tissot captured these trends in his paintings.

Autumn on the Thames, Nuneham Courtney (c. 1871-72), by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

In Autumn on the Thames, Nuneham Courtney (c. 1871-72), the gentleman’s suit coat is deep blue, and we can see from his cuffs that he wears a crisp white shirt under it, accented with a black tie. His straw boater seems slightly crumpled, but his ginger whiskers are so immaculately groomed as to be impervious to the strong breeze.

The Return from the Boating Trip (1873), by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikipaintings.org)

The dapper gentleman in The Return from the Boating Trip (1873), with his notable ginger whiskers and walrus mustache, is prepared for varying weather. He wears a short, loosely fitted, double-breasted charcoal grey coat – really, a sailor’s pea coat – and carries a black overcoat on his arm. Under the pea coat, the hem of a blue sack coat is apparent. The man’s bright white trousers have a generous, loosely turned-up cuff, and they show off his summery laced-up spectator shoes of white and tan leather. The white scarf neatly folded at his neck echoes his trousers, and under the scarf, his blue- and white-striped Breton shirt is visible. His ivory-colored straw boater has a bright blue and red ribbon band. He, like his companion, is dressed to perfection for this outing.

Quarreling (c. 1874-75), by James Tissot. Private Collection. (Photo: Wikiart.org)

The unapologetic young man in Quarreling (c. 1874-75) wears a loosely-cut beige lounge suit that nicely sets off his flamboyant tan and white leather spectator shoes. His white shirt collar is quite high, drawing the eye to his straw boater with its black band. It was in the 1870s that it became acceptable to wear the lounge suit outside one’s domestic environment.

A Passing Storm (c. 1876), by James Tissot. Beaverbrook Art Gallery, New Brunswick. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

The young man in A Passing Storm (c. 1876), also shown after a quarrel with a woman, seems troubled, with his straw boater pushed back off his forehead. He looks elegant in his black lounge suit, under which he wears a white shirt with a stand-up collar paired with a dark brown tie, and a low cut, ivory-colored waistcoat with a shawl collar.

By the Thames at Richmond (c. 1878), by James Tissot. (Photo: Wikimedia.org)

And, finally, in By the Thames at Richmond (c. 1878), a fashion “Don’t”: hunched over in his misshapen brown hat, wrinkled brown suit, and over-sized white spats covering his dusty black leather shoes, this man hardly cuts a striking figure.

However, the smart gentleman reader will note that the woman he is with gazes at him in adoration nonetheless – as he writes “I love you” with his walking stick in the ground at her feet.

Clothes are not always the measure of a man!

Masculine Fashion, by James Tissot: Officers, soldiers & sailors (1868 – 1883/85)

The Hammock: A novel based on the true story of French painter James Tissot, brings Tissot’s world from 1870 to 1879 alive in a story of war, art, Society glamour, love, scandal, and tragedy.

Illustrated with 17 stunning, high-resolution fine art images in full color

Courtesy of The Bridgeman Art Library

(295 pages; ISBN (ePub): 978-0-615-68267-9). See http://www.amazon.com/dp/B009P5RYVE.