"Portrait of Henriette Sontag" by Paul Delaroche
Here is one of the most beautiful female portraits in the history of painting. It is a portrait of Henriette Sontag (1806-1854), a German opera soprano who was regarded as one of the best voices of the nineteenth century. She performed beautifully in Leipzig, Berlin, Paris, and London, dazzling audiences everywhere with her vocal purity and ease. She performed outstanding coloratura and lyric roles in Mozart, Weber, Rossini, Bellini, and Donizetti operas. Beethoven handed the solo parts of the Mass in D major and the Ninth Symphony to the twenty-year-old Sontag.
For ten years, beginning in 1830, she resided in St. Petersburg, where her husband, the King of Sardinia's ambassador, was assigned. Concerts in St. Petersburg and Moscow were maybe the pinnacle of her creative career. The German singer's art was highly regarded by the Russian audience. Zhukovsky and Vyazemsky praised her, and many authors devoted poetry to her.
"Portrait of Henriette Sontag" (1831) - the painter represents a well-known opera singer from his day. A young woman with a lovely soulful face appears to be looking through the spectator. A dreamy grin gently touches her lips, and her eyes are sorrowful.
Sontag was dressed as Don Anna from Mozart's Don Giovanni by Delaroche. This part, which she first played in Paris in 1828, was one of the greatest in her repertory... The portrait's rigorous composition is eased by a little tilt of the singer's head against a dark backdrop, as well as her girlishly high and slender neck and frail shoulders.
Henrietta Sontag's lovely beauty and freshness (25 years old) were captured by the artist. Her huge and gorgeous eyes have a contemplative, dreamy air about them. Maybe she sees her entire tragically ended existence in the distance?
Delaroche's eyes revealed everything of a young woman's spirituality and refinement; her pure, gentle soul is clearly obvious in them!
Henrietta Rossi developed cholera while visiting a folk event in Mexico City. Typhus was added to it, and Henrietta Sontag died on June 17, 1855, at the age of 48. This is such a heartbreaking story...
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| "Portrait of Henriette Sontag" by Paul Delaroche - 1831, Oil on canvas. Size: 73x60 cm State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg |
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