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HELLEU, Paul César (1859 - 1927)
Portrait de femme au chapeau, c. 1900
Original drypoint etching on heavy wove paper
15 ½ x 11 inches (39.3 x 27.9 cm) image
33 7/8 x 25 ½ inches (86 x 64.7 cm) frame

Paul Helleu started his artistic career as a ceramist, but at the age of 17 he came to Paris to study under Gérôme, the academic painter, learning to paint such scenes as landscapes and churches. He soon began his career of painting and etching portraits, for which he is know universally known. His subjects were the sophisticated ladies of the belle époque era - the society described in the novels of Marcel Proust . He was a great wit and dandy and was described by the greatest aesthete of the day, Robert de Montesquieu, as the 'Master of Elegance'. Amongst his close friends were Monet, Whistler, Sargent and particularly J.J.Tissot. Tissot had been the master etcher of the Belle Époque but he recognized Helleu's great talent in drawing and persuaded him in 1885 to begin making drypoints. To encourage Helleu, Tissot gave him a diamond point which enhanced his unique talent. His prints included the splendid society portraits of elegant ladies in superb hats and the intimate portraits of his own family and close friends.

In 1904 he was awarded the Legion d'honneur and became one of the most celebrated artists in Paris and London of the Edwardian era and an honorary member of the most important beaux-arts societies. His sitters included the most famous and beautiful women of the time.

Helleu executed a few hundreds of these drypoint portraits and it is deplorable that no catalogue raisonné exists of these important works. Neither before nor since has anyone matched the virtuosity of his technique of capturing the grace and beauty of his sitters. The edition sizes are not recorded but they varied from about five to perhaps as many as a hundred.

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