Portrait of Léon Riesener is an 1835 portrait painting by the French artist Eugène Delacroix. It depicts his cousin and fellow Romantic painter Léon Riesener at the age of around twenty six when he was living at Frépillon. The two men were close friends and Delacroix helped promote the younger man's career. He also produced a painting of Riesener's mother shortly afterwards.Wrightsman p.340-41 Riesener enjoyed a successful career, exhibiting from the Salon of 1833 to the Salon of 1877, although today he is best remembered for this and other portrait by Delacroix he sat for.Ives & Barker p.132
The painting was likely produced either for the sitter or his mother.Allard & Fabre p.288 It was displayed at the 1885 Paris retrospective exhibition of Delacroix's work held to raise funds for a public monument for the artist https://pop.culture.gouv.fr/notice/joconde/000PE000898 Since 1960 it has been part of the collection of the Louvre in Paris.https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010059723
References
Bibliography Allard, Sébastien & Fabre, Côme. Delacroix. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2018. Ives, Colta Feller & Barker, Elizabeth E. Romanticism & the School of Nature. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000. Wrightsman, Jayne. The Wrightsman Pictures. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.