Spring Auction 2018
This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 4/26/2018
Théobald Chartran (20 July 1849 – 16 July 1907) was a classical French propaganda painter autograph signature on the back of his personal business card and dated Washington, March, 1902. He was in Washington and hired for the official portrait of president Theodore Roosevelt., with an original cabinet card portrait removed from card.
President Theodore Roosevelt's official portrait was originally commissioned to Theobald Chartran in 1902, but when Roosevelt saw the final product he hated it and hid it in the darkest corner of the White House. When family members called it the "Mewing Cat" for making him look so harmless, he had it destroyed and hired John Singer Sargent to paint a more masculine portrait.
As "T", he was one of the artists responsible for occasional caricatures of Vanity Fair magazine, specializing in French and Italian subjects. His work for Vanity Fair included Pope Leo XIII, Giuseppe Garibaldi, Umberto I of Italy, William Henry Waddington, all in 1878, Charles Gounod, Giuseppe Verdi, Ernest Renan, Jules Grévy, Napoléon Joseph Charles Paul Bonaparte, Victor Hugo, Marshal MacMahon, Granier de Cassagnac, Louis Blanc, and Alexandre Dumas, Fils, all in 1879.
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