Portrait de Madame Herzog 1875

Jean-Jacques Henner painted this portrait of Madame Herzog at some point in the 19th century, probably in France. Henner’s career was bound up with the institutional structure of French art. As a student at the École des Beaux-Arts, he won the prestigious Prix de Rome, funding his study of the old masters in Italy. In this portrait, Henner employs a characteristically muted palette. The figure emerges from the darkness in a way that recalls the portraits of Rembrandt. This, along with the subject's dark clothing and restrained demeanor, evokes the traditional values of the bourgeoisie. But was Henner reinforcing those values, or subtly critiquing them? The tools of the social historian help us to explore such questions. By researching the biographies of both artist and sitter, and by studying the exhibition history of the work, we can better understand its place in the artistic and social world of its time.