Portrait de femme

Original pencil drawing depicting a seated woman with crossed hands, wearing a dress with imposing drapery and flowers in her hair. Artist's stamp at bottom left of the sheet.
Achille Devéria (1800-1857) is a French painter, illustrator and engraver, student of Girodet-Trioson. He is a recognized illustrator and published numerous lithographs (Contes by Perrault, Don Quixote, Robinson Crusoe, La Henriade...). In 1849, he was appointed director of the prints department of the Bibliothèque Nationale and assistant curator of the Egyptian department of the Louvre.
The famous portrait of Honoré de Balzac as a young man (1825) is attributed to him. He painted in his Parisian studio on rue de l'Ouest. Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas (père), Prosper Mérimée, Franz Liszt and numerous other artists and writers came there to be immortalized.