Alexander Kucharski
LC control no.: nb2007019515
LCCN Permalink: https://lccn.loc.gov/nb2007019515
Kucharski, Alexander
https://proxy.bostonathenaeum.org:2319/10.1093/benz/9780199773787.article.B00101657
Published online: 31 October 2011
Polish, 18th – 19th century, male.
Active in France.
Born 18 March 1741, in Warsaw; died 5 November 1819, in Ste-Périne (Paris).
Painter, pastellist, miniaturist.
Alexander Kucharski started as a page to the king of Poland. He probably began studying art at Bacciarelli's studio in Warsaw. A bursary from the king enabled him to go to Paris, where he spent his entire career. After winning a prize at the Académie Royale de Peinture in 1760, he studied there with Vien from 1760 to 1769. He was in the service of the princes of Condé from 1776 to 1778, and then worked mainly for the French and Polish aristocracy. There were large numbers of Polish aristocrats in France after Louis XV's marriage to the Polish princess Maria Leszczinska. Kucharski painted numerous portraits, many of them in pastel, a technique much in vogue in the 18th century. His pastels made him famous at court. In 1780 he painted a portrait of Louis XVI's queen, Marie-Antoinette, and after the departure of Madame Vigée-Lebrun in 1789, he became painter to the queen, painting her portrait and those of the Princess de Lamballe, the Comte d'Artois, the Empress Catherine of Russia and a sketch of the Dauphin, now kept in the Petit Trianon at Versailles. He served twice in the Temple prison, and painted a portrait of Marie Antoinette while she was a prisoner in the Conciergerie. This was in the Arenberg gallery and appeared in the exhibition of 18th-century French art in Berlin in 1910. It has been lithographed by Delooze.
Museum and Gallery Holdings
Versailles (Mus. Lambinet): Sketch of the Dauphin
Auction Records
Paris, 26 March 1963: Portrait of Madame Royale, later Duchess of Angoulême, FRF 121,000
Monte Carlo, 20 June 1987: Portrait of Louis XVI (1789); Portrait of Marie-Antoinette (1790, oil on canvas, a pair, 27? ? 21? ins/70.5 ? 55.5 cm) FRF 100,000
London, 26 Oct 1994: Head and shoulders portrait of Countess Potocka, dressed in white (oil on canvas, 26 ? 17? ins/66 ? 45 cm) GBP 2,875
