Portrait of Madame Jules Ricard, née Augustine Bulteau (c. 1893): Art, History and Details

Portrait of Madame Jules Ricard, née Augustine Bulteau (c. 1893) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Fernand Khnopff (Belgian, 1858–1921).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Although Fernand Khnopff was best known for depicting femmes fatales—threatening or dangerous women—this drawing offers a personalized and intimate depiction of its sitter, Augustine Bulteau. A prolific novelist and writer, Bulteau hosted a regular salon for artists such as Manet and Toulouse-Lautrec. She appears dressed conservatively but fashionably, holding her place in a book as if interrupted while reading.

Object facts

• Title: Portrait of Madame Jules Ricard, née Augustine Bulteau
• Date: c. 1893
• Creator attribution: Fernand Khnopff (Belgian, 1858–1921)
• Culture: France, 19th century
• Type: Drawing
• Technique: black chalk on tan-colored vellum
• Dimensions: Sheet: 40.5 x 32.4 cm (15 15/16 x 12 3/4 in.)
• Collection: DR - German
• Department: Drawings
• Accession number: 2018.206

Collection credit

Severance and Greta Millikin Trust

Further reading listed by the museum

• Anonymous. “Nouvelles artistiques.” La Fédération artistique, no. 35 (June 19, 1892)
• Khnopff, Fernand. Fernand Khnopff et ses rapports avec la Secession viennoise: Bruxelles, Musées royaux des beaux-arts de Belgique, 2 octobre-6 décembre 1987. Bruxelles: Les Musées, 1987.
• Ollinger-Zinque, Gisèle. Rétrospective Fernand Khnopff. Tokyo: Bunkamura Museum, 1990.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.