Luigi Rubio
Rome 1797 – 1882 Florence
Portrait of the Singer, Pianist and Composer Pauline Viardot (1821 - 1910), 1840
Oil on Canvas
58 x 48 cm
Signed and dated lower right “Rubio 1840”
Pauline Viardot-García was born into a very musical family, which set the stage for her career as an artist. As a singer she enjoyed international success and she developed into a renowned pianist being teached by Franz List. Also, she studied composition in Paris with Anton Reicha. In 1863 she moved to Baden-Baden with her family, where she organized matinees and artists' meetings together with her friend Clara Schumann. Among her house guests were personalities such as Otto von Bismarck, Frédéric Chopin, Richard Wagner, Anton Rubinstein and many others.
Charles Camille Saint-Saëns dedicated his opera Samson et Dalila to her. In her later years, she set texts and poems to music and adapted works by Haydn, Chopin and Brahms for piano and vocal. After the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, the Viardot family moved back to Paris, where Pauline died on May 18, 1910.
We thank David Kasunic, Princeton, for pointing out the association with Chopin.