Red Hair in Art: Carolus-Duran

Charles Auguste Émile Durand, known as Carolus-Duran (1837 - 1917), was a French painter and art instructor. He is noted for his stylish depictions of members of high society in Third Republic France.

In 1889 and 1900 he served on the juries at the Expositions Universelles. In 1890, he was one of the co-founders of the second Société Nationale des Beaux-Arts and he was elected a member of the Académie des Beaux-Arts in 1904. The following year, he was appointed Director of the French Academy in Rome, a position he held until 1913.

He had many notable pupils, such a John Singer Sargent, Ralph Wormeley Curtis, Jan Stanisławski, Kenyon Cox, Theodore Robinson, Mariquita Jenny Moberly, Mariette Leslie Cotton, Maximilien Luce, James Carroll Beckwith, Will Hicok Low, Mary Fairchild MacMonnies Low, Paul Helleu, Alexandre Jean Baptiste Brun, Robert Alan Mowbray Stevenson, Lucy Lee-Robbins and Ernest Ange Duez.

Like many other painters, he loved red hair and painted it extensively. Here are some of his paintings and portraits featuring red hair.

Danae (c 1900)

Queen Maria Pia of Portugal (1880)

Untitled (1900)

Hebe (date not known)

Portrait of a Red-Haired Woman (1876).

From the date it is possible that the model

may have been Victorine Meurent

Leila

Study of Leila