Lot 1168 Dα

Inscribed on the reverse, presumably by the artist: Cosima et Blandine Liszt, 25. Févriér 1845.

Liszt befriended the painter Henri Lehman in Italy in 1839. It was in this year that he painted what is probably the most famous portrait of Liszt in Rome, alongside several portraits of the composer's partner Marie d ´Agoult. Following Liszt's departure from Rome on 12th June 1839, Lehman took care of Liszt's son Daniel, who had been born in Rome in 1839, before himself returning to Paris in January 1842.

Liszt wrote to Lehmann from St. Petersburg in April 1843 to ask, “Will you have time to paint the portrait of my children this summer? If so, paint Blandine and Cosima together and Daniel separately – or better yet only the two girls, Mouche (Blandine) and Cosinette.” (From: Une correspondence romantique. Madame d ´Agoult, Liszt, Henri Lehmann, Paris 1947, p. 181). Cosima famously later married Richard Wagner, whilst Blandine was to wed the French statesman Emile Olivier, who became Prime Minister on 2nd January 1870. She died at age 27 on 1st September 1860, two months after the birth of her son.

Henri Lehmann learnt to paint in Paris under Ingres in the early 1830s. In 1838 he travelled to Rome, where Ingres helped him integrate himself into the artistic scene. When he settled in Paris in around 1842, he became one of the most sought-after painters among the high society and the intellectual elite, painting figures as illustrious as Stendhal, Chopin, Meyerbeer, and Alexander von Humboldt.