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Léopold Burthe’s Angelique is a recently rediscovered masterpiece by a native New Orleanian who lived and painted in Paris in the 1840s and ‘50s. Presented at the Paris Salon of 1852, Angelique depicts a scene from the epic 16th century poem Orlando Furioso by Ludovico Ariosto, a story commonly presented in French painting of this period. Angelique has been chained to a rock and a sea monster threatens to attack just as Orlando, a chivalrous knight, astride a hippogriff, arrives to save his beloved. Associated with the “Neo-Greeks,” Burthe’s academic style focuses on single-figure tragic heroines staged in stylized, fixed poses silhouetted against stark backgrounds.
Born in 1823 in New Orleans, Burthe was sent to France as an adolescent with his sister when yellow fever threatened the city. His father, Dominique François Burthe, migrated from Metz, France, to Louisiana sometime before the 1803 Louisiana Purchase as an envoy of Napoleon Bonaparte’s Ministry of War. He married Louise Delord Sarpy, of prominent New Orleans parentage. The couple created the Faubourg Burtheville settlement, presumably near the present-day Carrollton neighborhood. Only seven other paintings by Burthe are known to exist. Angelique was discovered in 2015 and restored to reveal the artist’s signature and luminous style.
