Auguste Delécluse (1855–1928) Portrait Of The Artist’s Son, Eugène Delécluse, Roubaix

Auguste-Joseph DELECLUSE
(Roubaix 1855 – Paris 1928)
Portrait of the artist’s son, Eugène Delécluse
Oil on canvas
H. 98 cm; W. 116 cm
Signed lower right
1903

Exhibition: 1903, Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, No. 408 in the catalog, titled Portrait of My Son

A native of Roubaix, Auguste Delécluse trained in the Parisian studios of Carolus-Duran, Weerts, and Delance, whose tradition of apprenticeship he would later carry on. Primarily a portrait painter, he presented his first painting at the Salon at the age of 25 and received an honorable mention ten years later. If Delécluse’s name was well-known in artistic circles from the 1880s to the 1920s, it was thanks to the academy he founded in Montparnasse, bearing his surname, where he taught alongside his former mentor, Delance. Many women were among the students at this Parisian institution, which closed around the time of World War I.

In 1903, Auguste Delecluse submitted five works to the Salon of the Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts, including this large-format painting depicting his son Eugène, then 21 years old.
Auguste had already exhibited paintings featuring his son as the subject: a portrait of his wife and son at the 1888 Salon des Artistes Français (entry number 769 in the catalog), and a portrait of his son at the 1893 Salon de la Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts (catalog number 325)
Seated at his work table in a studio, the young Eugène poses with his legs crossed in an elegantly relaxed posture, wearing his large apron over his suit, pencil in hand. His face, illuminated by a ray of light—just like the two touches of red on his tie and the book’s binding—subtly brighten the room’s ambient dimness. Against the very understated background, a jar of paintbrushes rests on a shelf.

In that same year, 1903, Eugène also participated for the first time in a Salon—the Salon des Artistes Français—with a drawing, and our painting may reflect the father’s pride in marking this official recognition of his son. Both artists were registered at the same address, 84 rue Notre-Dame des Champs in Paris, which was also the address of the Académie Delécluse. Was the portrait thus painted in one of the Academy’s rooms, or in the family apartment, as the presence of the Henri II-style chair might suggest?

Regarding the critical reception of the work, Le Journal des Artistes praises the father’s work: “… a tall, beardless young man, seated at his work table, wearing a smock […] as an aspiring artist might, a strikingly realistic portrait, rendered in the finest style.”
*La Liberté* is no less effusive: “By Mr. Auguste Delecluse, two excellent portraits, one of which—that of his son—is painted in the most candid and accurate manner: one of the finest portraits at the Salon.”
Finally, L’Art: revue mensuelle illustrée speaks soberly of a “Good Portrait of My Son by Mr. Auguste Delécluse.”
Despite this excellent reception, it seems the painting did not find a buyer at the Salon; the stretcher indeed bears a handwritten inscription in English, Portrait of my son, by Auguste Delécluse. Delécluse made frequent trips to England, and it is possible that he brought the portrait with him in an attempt to sell it to a British clientele.

Eugène Delécluse (Paris, 1882 – Villiers-le-Bel, 1972), a student of his father, Delance, and Fernand Cormon, had a respectable career as a painter, illustrator, and engraver, regularly exhibiting at the Salon beginning in 1907. He produced mainly landscapes in a Post-Impressionist style, featuring numerous Breton subjects, as well as scenes from the Mediterranean, Paris, and England.

The painting is on view in Paris’s 8th arrondissement.