Thérèse-Éléonore Hemery-Lingeé (Paris, 1753–after 1814); after Augustin de Saint-Aubin (Paris, 1736–1807).

Validé, ou Sultane Mère.

Paris, published by the artist, rue Saint-Thomas, Porte Saint-Jacques, no. 22, [c. 1789].

Crayon-manner engraving in two colours, printed in bistre and sanguine-coloured inks on laid paper. Sheet: 23.8 × 17.2 cm. Fourth and final state.

               This print does more than identify a woman as its engraver. In this fully lettered fourth and final state, the extensive inscription articulates several aspects of Lingée’s professional identity. It records both her birth name and married identity: ‘T.re El.re Hemery F.me Lingée’, claims institutional recognition through the designation ‘de l’Académie R.le de Marseille’, and offers the sheet for sale chez l’auteur at her Paris address. Lingée thus presents herself not only as the print’s maker, but as an academically recognised artist and the publisher-retailer of her own work.
These were substantial claims. Although based in Paris, Lingée submitted examples of her work to the Marseille academy and was admitted in 1785 as an associé agréé, a category of professional artists distinct from honorary amateurs. Her admission preceded those of her brother Antoine-François Hémery and her brother-in-law Nicolas Ponce. In 1791, Pierre-François Basan likewise praised her as an artist who engraved ‘supérieurement dans le genre du crayon’. Validé bears out that contemporary judgement: Lingée uses bistre and sanguine to reproduce the visual logic of a two-chalk drawing, building the dark ground, elaborate coiffure and dress in bistre while modelling the sitter’s flesh in warmer sanguine. The elaborate credit line therefore accompanies a compelling demonstration of both her technical command and her direct involvement in publishing and selling her work.

Valide sultan was the Ottoman title of the reigning sultan’s mother, generally the highest-ranking woman in the imperial household. The print does not, however, portray an identifiable Ottoman woman. Saint-Aubin states that he drew the sitter ad vivum, and a surviving version of his drawing is signed and dated 1777, but the model was probably a French woman or actress in theatrical costume. Her towering curls, pearls and plumed headdress belong unmistakably to fashionable Louis XVI Paris; the image is best understood as an exceptionally refined product of French turquerie, transforming a Parisian model into the powerful but inaccessible Ottoman queen mother. Bocher records four states and places the plate with its separately titled pendant, Odalisque, favorite du Sultan, dating the pair to about 1789. At least two autograph versions of Saint-Aubin’s design are known, including the drawing offered at Sotheby’s in 2012 and another sold at Artcurial in 2022.

Condition: A good impression, with the bistre and sanguine tones clearly differentiated and the image well preserved. The sheet has been trimmed slightly beyond the platemark on three sides. Light dust-soiling and handling marks along the platemark and outer margins, with a few minor spots, a faint old graphite notation in the lower-left margin and a short light crease near the upper-right corner. Old paper mounting strips and adhesive residue along the edges verso.

References:

Emmanuel Bocher, Les gravures françaises du XVIIIe siècle, fifth fascicle: Augustin de Saint-Aubin (Paris, 1879), no. 408, fourth state of four.

Roger Portalis and Henri Béraldi, Les graveurs du dix-huitième siècle, vol. II (Paris, 1881), pp. 719–21.

Kelsey D. Martin, ‘Divine Secrets of a Printmaking Sisterhood: The Professional and Familial Networks of the Horthemels and Hémery Sisters’, in Cristina S. Martinez and Cynthia E. Roman, eds., Female Printmakers, Printsellers, and Print Publishers in the Eighteenth Century: The Imprint of Women, c. 1700–1830 (Cambridge, 2024), pp. 91–107.

Sotheby’s, New York, Old Master Drawings, 25 January 2012, lot 64.

Artcurial, Paris, De Watteau à Vuillard: Une collection parisienne, 21 September 2022, lot 12.