Artist: Henriette Browne (Sophie de Bouteiller) (French, 1829 – 1901)
Medium: Antique steel engraving on wove paper after the 1870 original by master engraver Francis Montague Holl (English, 1845–1888).
Signature: Signed in the plate.
Dimensions: Image Size 7 x 10 1/2 inches.
Framed Dimensions: Approximately 16 x 20 inches.
Framing: This piece has been professionally matted and framed using all new materials.
Alsace has reference to the grievous war between France and Germany Here is a sister of the Red Cross Society standing at the entrance of a church, collecting alms for the benefit of the bereaved widows and orphans of the French soldiers killed in the deadly struggle. The expression of the sister’s face is quite in harmony with her mission; it is eloquent by its sadness; so much so as to favor the idea that she herself was mourning over the loss of some dear one: and indeed there were few families, especially in Alsace, who had not to lament the death of some relative or friend. The figure is very strikingly set forth, with much picturesqueness in the arrangement of costume and accessories, and with considerable eloquence.
Sophie de Bouteiller, better known by the pseudonym Henriette Browne, was a French Orientalist painter and traveler. Browne was born in Paris on June 16, 1829. She was the wife of diplomat Henry Jules de Saux, secretary of Count Walewski. She is considered a pioneer in Orientalist painting. Browne studied under Charles Joshua Chaplin beginning in 1851. In 1853, she began exhibiting under the name Henriette Browne, mainly in France and England. She was one of the three female founding members of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts in Paris in 1862. During the age of empire, Browne’s academic paintings of religious and oriental subjects found appeal among British and French audiences. Noted for her images of white European women as religious figures, her work’s mission was to influence colonial subjects to the conversion of Christianity. She also painted harems and dancing girls, presenting woman as the exotic colonial other.