Artist/Maker Anne-Marguérite-Joséphine-Henriette Rouillé de Marigny, Baroness Hyde de Neuville (French, 1771–1849)

Woman Wearing a Cap Writing by Candlelight, verso: man holding a pole

ca. 1790-1802

Black, white, and red chalk with stumping and gray watercolor on beige paper; black chalk

Sheet (irregular): 4 5/8 × 5 1/4 in. (11.7 × 13.3 cm)

Gift of Mark Emanuel

2018.42.3

Neuville executed this nocturnal study primarily in black chalk, the medium she preferred when learning to draw in Sancerre, with touches of white and red chalk and gray watercolor. Already apparent is her interest in people studying, reading, writing, or drawing—one of the major themes in her oeuvre. The bespectacled sitter occupies the same "fauteuil" (armchair) with an identical candlestick as the man in another of her drawings (2018.42.4). The woman’s cap and the artist’s warm attitude toward the pair underline their intimate domesticity, suggesting that her sitters were family members. Studied over time, the works' finished nature differs from Neuville's later, more notational sketches. About the Artist Born in Sancerre, France into an aristocratic family, Henriette, as she preferred to be called, received an education that probably included drawing lessons. At the fall of the Bastille in 1789, she and her father fled Paris for their country house, Château de L’Estang, where she began her artistic self-education. In 1794, during the height of the French Revolution, she married the handsome and hot-headed Jean Guillaume Hyde de Neuville, an ardent royalist who became involved in conspiracies to reinstate the Bourbon monarchy. In 1800, the couple was imprisoned and forced into hiding under aliases because of his role in the “English Conspiracy.” The baron was also condemned as an outlaw for his alleged participation in a plot to assassinate Napoleon. Fearing for her husband’s safety, the independent baroness attempted to disprove the charges. In 1805, she took her cause directly to Napoleon in a dramatic odyssey across Germany and Austria in pursuit of the French army, finally obtaining an audience with him in Vienna. Impressed with her courage, the Emperor allowed the couple to go into exile. They arrived in New York in 1807, where they stayed for seven years. During their second residency (1816–22), when her husband served as French Minister Plenipotentiary and was made a baron, they lived primarily in Washington, DC, where Henriette became an influential presence and celebrated hostess. After her return to France, the baroness seems to have retired her pen and watercolors. John Quincy Adams described her in his diary as “a woman of excellent temper, amiable disposition . . . profuse charity, yet judicious economy and sound discretion.”

DescriptionHalf-length representation of a woman wearing a domestic cap and spectacles seated on a fautueil at a desking writing, flanked by a candle and candlestick. The verso has the partial depiction a man holding a pole.

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The Works of Anne Marguérite Joséphine Henriette Rouillé de Marigny, Baroness Hyde de Neuville

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