Lot 99: MICHAEL GHISLAIN STAPLEAUX (BELGIAN, 1799-1881)

A young lady called the artist's wife, in red dress with short puffed sleeves, orange and red enamelled gold brooch and matching chain suspended from corsage and matching belt buckle on red sash, sapphire-set gold tiara in her dark upswept hair tied in an Apollo knot; interior background with pillar and wall decorated with green foliate scrolls
signed and dated 'M l Stapleaux 1833' (lower left)
watercolour on card
rectangular, 9 x 7 1/8 in. (228 x 180 mm.), stamped foliate gilt-metal mount set on burgundy leather board with gold tool-edged border, the reverse with the gilt-metal initial 'A' within tooled leather surround and gold foliate borders

Michael Ghislain Stapleaux grew up in Brussels but later went to France and became a pupil of Jacques-Louis David. Whilst in France, he executed a series of portraits of the Bonaparte family. Between 1834 and 1836 he was at the Court of Stuttgart and was drawing master to Princess Mathilde of Württemberg.

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