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This lively and engaging portrait shows Abel Widmer (1805–1838), a pupil at the Institution Saint-Victor, a secondary school for boys in Paris. It was probably painted around 1824, the year Widmer won the school’s annual prize. It is most likely the first of a series of ten portraits of the prizewinners commissioned by the school’s founder and friend of Delacroix, Prosper-Parfait Goubaux (1795–1859). Six of the portraits are known to survive. Delacroix was a young man in his mid-twenties when he painted the portrait, and he was still forging his own style, looking at Old Masters such as Velázquez for inspiration. Degas so admired the portrait that he acquired it in the 1890s for his own collection.

The National Gallery, London

London

Title

Abel Widmer

Date

about 1824

Medium

Oil on canvas

Measurements

H 59.7 x W 48.3 cm

Accession number

NG3287

Acquisition method

Bought, 1918

Work type

Painting

The National Gallery, London

Trafalgar Square, London, Greater London WC2N 5DN England

This venue is open to the public. Not all artworks are on display. If you want to see a particular artwork, please contact the venue.

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Artist or maker

Eugène Delacroix

1798–1863

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