French school, 19th century."Portrait of a lady.Oil on canvas.Signed "Winterhalter" in the lower

French school, 19th century.
"Portrait of a lady.
Oil on canvas.
Signed "Winterhalter" in the lower left zone.
Measurements: 76 x 60 cm; 87 x 74 cm (frame).
The signature, in addition to the aristocratic style that characterises this female portrait, leads us to think that the author could belong to the circle of painters close to the one who was the main court portraitist during the Second French Empire, Franz Xaver Winterhalter (Black Forest, 1805-Frankfurt am Main, 1873). This is a half-length portrait of a lady with dark eyes and a firm gaze. Her countenance denotes character, so that the painter captures the psychology as well as the sumptuous qualities of the silks, the jewels and the smooth flesh tones.
Franz Xaver Winterhalter was a German painter and lithographer particularly known for his portraits of royalty painted in the mid-19th century. Among his best known works are The Empress Eugenie surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting (1855) and the portrait of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria, popularly known as Sisi (1864). In Paris Winterhalter soon became a fashionable painter. He was appointed court painter to King Louis Philippe of France, who commissioned him to paint portraits of the members of his great family. Winterhalter executed more than thirty commissions for him. His success also earned him a reputation as a specialist in dynastic and aristocratic portraiture, skilfully combining portraiture and flattery and intensifying official ostentation with modern fashion. In 1852 Winterhalter travelled to Spain, accompanied by his compatriot Edward Magnus, also a prominent portraitist, to paint Queen Isabella II1 and also worked for the Portuguese royal family. Russian aristocrats visiting Paris also liked the portraits by the famous master and often hired his services. As the "painter of princes", Winterhalter was in great demand at most European courts: in England (from 1841), Spain, Belgium, Russia, Mexico, the various German states and France. In the following years Winterhalter's fame continued and his services were in great demand. In 1856 he travelled to Poland to paint the local aristocrats and in 1857 he painted the German-born Tsarina Maria Alexandrovna in Bavaria. During the 1860s he received many commissions from Russia. His popularity increased after Napoleon III came to power in France. During the Second French Empire he became the leading portraitist of the court and the imperial family. The beautiful Empress Eugénie became one of his favourite models and she treated him generously. In 1856 Winterhalter painted what was to be his masterpiece, The Empress Eugénie surrounded by her ladies-in-waiting, in which the Empress of France - the Spanish-born Eugénie de Montijo - is shown in a pastoral setting picking flowers in a harmonious circle with her ladies-in-waiting. The painting was acclaimed by the public and exhibited at the Universal Exhibition of 1853, and remains Winterhalter's most famous work. During the Second Mexican Empire, under the rule of Emperor Maximilian I of Mexico, Winterhalter was commissioned to paint the portraits of the imperial couple. The Empress consort of Mexico, Charlotte of Belgium, was the daughter of Louise Marie d'Orléans, Queen of Belgium, who had engaged Winterhalter's services early in his career. Some of Winterhalter's paintings of the Mexican monarchs are still preserved in his palace in Mexico City, which is now the National Museum of History.