1.6 Joseph-François Ducq: portraitist of Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester
The portraitist Joseph-François Ducq enjoyed training with his compatriot Joseph-Benoît Suvée in Paris from 1786 to 1792, as a former student of the Bruges academy. However, due to the revolutionary turmoil, he left the French capital, only to return between 1795 and 1806. In 1800, he competed for the Grand Prix de Rome in painting and was ranked second alongside Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres (1780-1867). However, he postponed his trip to Rome for several years he was already 44 years old by then until he arrived in Rome in 1807 together with Joseph-Charles De Meulemeester. There he worked mainly for Eugène de Beauharnais (1781-1824), painting subjects from ancient history, mythology, and the Bible, as well as portraits, cityscapes, and Italian landscapes. In 1813, the year he completed the portrait of De Meulemeester, he returned to Paris. After the fall of Napoleon, he returned to Bruges, where he became a teacher and director of the local academy. In addition to his usual activities as a painter, he restored works by Hans Memling (1430/1440-1494) and thus played a role in the rediscovery of the Flemish Primitives.1
Until 1844, Joseph van Huerne’s collection in Bruges included a finished Self-portrait of Ducq with a View of Rome, which can be considered a companion piece to the portrait of De Meulemeester.2 Perhaps Ducq’s drawn Self-portrait, with palette in hand, could have served as a preliminary study for this painting [18].3
18
Joseph-François Ducq,
Self-portrait Painting (in Rome?), n.d,
black chalk heightened with white on light-brown paper, 575 x 435 mm,
Bruges, Groeningemuseum, Steinmetzkabinet, inv. no. 0000.GRO. 2101.II
Notes
1 Joseph-François Ducq deserves an in-depth study. See further, Coekelberghs 1976, p. 387-389; Dominique Vautier, in: Ixelles 1985, p. 136-138; Marechal 2007, p. 153; Bruges 2007-2008; Join-Lambert/Leclair 2017, p. 376. For the very numerous drawings preserved in Bruges, Groeningemuseum, Steinmetz Cabinet, see Van de Velde 1984.
2 Brugge 1844, lot 58 (p. 17): Portrait du peintre dans son atelier. Il tient sa palette d’une main et il montre de l’autre une vue de Rome. H 76. L.57 (T).
3 Van de Velde 1984, p. 111; Bruges 2007-2008, p. 194-195.